From her home at Divisadero and Ellis, Tricia Wright oversees an online jewelry and rug-making company, using exclusively recycled materials. Called Rewind Lab, it sells its products on its own site and on Etsy, with a top seller being Wright’s take on the woven “ryder rug” design, utilizing reclaimed inner tubes from local bike shops.
While Rewindlab creates a variety of products, Rewind Lab's rug line came to fruition after Wright produced an art piece for a show at Mojo Bicycle Cafe that left her standing amidst, and on top of, mountainous scraps of bicycle tubes.
Photo: Emily Ann Hodges
“I started thinking about all of the spent tubes that end up in landfills, and before I knew it, I had a loom in my studio, and was taking weaving lessons from a master textile artist in Berkeley," she says. "At Rewind Lab, we think of our products as waste-negative, beauty-positive. We transform items with little value into objects of unforeseen beauty, while diverting them from their fated place in the trash stream. It’s a waste-reversal magic trick."
Pedaling around town, Wright collects her tubes from two local bike shops: Market Street Cycles and Box Dog Bikes. She loads them into her giant backpack and returns home to give the tubes a bath, line-dry them, and cut them to length for the loom. To give the rugs structure, and add pops of color, she uses hand-dyed wool yarn, purchased from a rug manufacturing mill in central California. The yarn is excess leftover from the mill's large-scale jobs, and also destined for the landfill.
The colors and spool sizes are random, giving each rug a unique look and story. Marrying the thread and tubes together through the loom, she aims to weave new life into these previously forgotten products to create a one-of-a-kind, recycled rug.
A resident of the neighborhood for 20 years, Wright has seen a lot of changes, even as her own business has grown.
Photo: Martin Leugers
“There was only one coffee shop on Divis ... that's it,” she remembers. “The coffee has always been good, but now it's the best it gets. It’s the kind of neighborhood where people just say 'good morning,' and make no comments about my wild outfits. I found a place I belonged, and from the get-go, was welcomed by kind locals, who taught me about living in a city with an open mind and heart. Knowing I belong in a sea of uniqueness allows me to exercise my creativity, and that shows in my work.”
But, like many others, she’s concerned about what’s happening to the city.
“Sometimes, I squint and can see what [the neighborhood] once was. I do hope that San Francisco will continue to be a place that artists and musicians can afford to live, so that we can do our part in maintaining the diverse, creative city I so dearly love.”
Photo: Tricia Wright
To date, Wright and Rewind Lab have successfully repurposed several hundred pounds of used bike tubes, which would otherwise be taking up space in the local landfill.
