Hello, I'm Lenore
I spent decades in fashion accessories, design, sourcing, trend forecasting and training designers. Along the way, I launched my own jewelry line, Lenore Solmo, built on one idea: take a chandelier crystal and turn it into a tiny work of art you can wear around your neck.
So yes, making something precious out of something unexpected has always been my thing.
In 2020, when the world stood still, I wanted a challenge with more meaning. I found it on the sidewalk: single-use plastic bottles rolling around the streets of Brooklyn, headed for our waterways. I started picking them up, and I haven’t stopped.
I heat each bottle and shape it by hand into a fluid, otherworldly sea creature: a jellyfish, an octopus, an oyster. Then I dress it in vintage beads and pearls from my own archives.
That’s the heart of my work: grit and glamour. Brooklyn’s streets give me my materials, and fashion trained my eye. Nothing is mass-produced. Every piece is one of a kind, and every material lived a first life before I gave it a second.
I love sharing my techniques, and my work shows up wherever people are. I lead up-cycled art workshops all over New York City, from senior centers to Freshkills Park, and I’ve had solo shows at Compere Collective in Red Hook and Freshkills Park Gallery on Staten Island, plus group shows at The Oculus at the World Trade Center and with the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. I’ve been Resident Artist at the Washington Square Park Conservancy, taught and exhibited at the Eco Arts Festival on Governors Island, and my sea creatures are currently on view for a full year at Sure We Can, a community recycling center in Brooklyn. Honestly, that might be their most fitting address yet. Beyond New York, I’ve represented the USA at Art Connects Women in Dubai and exhibited in Italy. Next I want to take my practice to cities around the world, collecting each city’s trash and telling the stories it leaves behind.