Student catches eye of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! - The Daily Collegian: Campus
What started as an art class project has grown to become more than just a hobby.
Casey Saline said she didn’t want her next art project to be created with her usual choice of painting but with a different material. She scrounged around her house for something interesting that she could turn into art.
She found cassette tapes.
“I think that it is very unique,” Carrie Saline, Saline’s mother, said. “She has a way of trying new things and making it work when it’s done.”
Saline (freshman-art education) used the ribbon to form the tapes to create a two dimensional portrait of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta — her favorite actors.
The portrait caught the eye of the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum” after she emailed them about her art work.
Saline said it started with her family’s yearly trip to New York. That year, her sister kept pleading to go to the museum.
Though the family had already been there before, they agreed. Once inside, Saline received a pamphlet of the different works of art.
She found a piece that resembled the portrait she made in her art class. That’s where she got the idea to take her chances and email Ripley’s photos of her art.
Ripley’s purchased the Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta portrait and it now rests in Ocean City, MD.
Later, while she was still a junior in high school, Saline sold her second two dimensional piece to Ripley’s again. This time, she created a portrait of Whitney Houston.
That portrait is resting in the Ripley’s museum in London, England. Saline said she visited the museum in Ocean City but unfortunately hasn’t had the chance to travel to London.
“I love [her work] because she thinks outside of the box,” Carrie Saline said. “Using materials people throw away isn’t only recycling, it’s memories and nostalgia and it takes people back in time.”
Saline took a break for a while and started her career at Penn State. The freshman is taking more art classes and has designed a third piece of art.
This three dimensional piece is of Jimi Hendrix and again is made out of cassette ribbon — her signature. Ripley’s now has a small collection of the Saline’s work after she sold them the Hendrix portrait.
“Casey has facility for naturalistic drawing and she seems to be putting it to use as a way of beginning to build a reputation for herself,” Mary Ann Stankiewicz , Saline’s art professor and advisor, said.
Saline has yet to learn the whereabouts of the third piece, but she said she can’t wait to find out.
The artist is now working on building a frame for her life-size Charlie Chaplin piece. She plans on using movie reels to create this piece.
All of these portraits that Saline makes consume a lot of hours, work, energy and materials. Cassette tapes aren’t as popular as they used to be, but she doesn’t have to worry about her supply running out.
Saline said she gets many donations from people in her town of Emporium.
“I will come home and have boxes of cassette tapes on my doorstep,” Saline said. “But if what I need isn’t donated, I buy things off of eBay and Etsy .”
She doesn’t run out of things to create either. Saline uses the titles of the cassette tapes as inspiration for her next portrait. Or she will produce pieces that people in her community ask for.
Her goal for the summer, however, is to start mass producing her artwork so she can create a shop of her own on Etsy.
“There isn’t one thing she does that doesn’t blow me away,” Carrie Saline said. “This is her knack and I’m looking forward to what she has planned to do in the future.”
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