Dan Phillips Creates Trash Refuges for Homes & Hearts

Michael Stravato for The New York Times CYCLES Dan Phillips builds houses out of salvaged items, like frame samples, which he used on a ceiling.

Two days in a row now, I’ve come back to Green Beings to get my bearings, running away from the ravages of the modern world, where I’m increasingly convinced that we will self-destruct.

Posting Richard Branson’s Plan to Blast Off from Planet Earth seemed like a sensible feature five minutes ago.

Until I stumbled through the door of Dan Phillips trash houses in Huntsville, Tex. For a moment, I stood in awe looking at the NYTimes photos of these trash-houses. But my inner mind was going Huntsville, Tex., Huntsville, Tex.

OMG! Look at this chair fashioned out of cattle bones. Rebirth from death.

Ah yes, Huntsville prison, down the road a piece from Jasper, Texas … James Byrd … chains … dragging behind the car … dismemberment … white supremacy. God bless James Byrd Jr.

Yet Dan Phillips is about redemption and renewal, a Frank Lloyd Wright visionary kind of guy, making natural, affordable, low-income beauty out of trash. How inspiring is that!

Let’s pop on over the Dan’s house The Phoenix Commotion. There’s lots to learn about Mr. Phillips and his garbage housses online.

How about a YouTube stop?

Dan Phillips Recycled Houses

I want to know Dan Phillips. Yesterday I suggested that we make the shuttered Cafe des Artistes restaurant into a “slow food” eatery. I think Dan Phillips could build us a fine hotel getaway place … a refuge from life when we need it … a thoughtful, slow-living kind of place. 

Dan, I have investors. Seriously!

Can you imagine anything bad happening in that house of recycled craftsmanship? Me neither, as long as Dan Phillips is standing guard.

What a lovely posting from the NYTimes! Alright then, give me back my rose-colored glasses. I’m not throwing them away just yet. Carry on, Anne.