By Robert Williams

Editor

Kat Torgerson’s basement in Detroit Lakes is an artist’s dream and a place where nothing will ever go to waste. Having just acquired her 600th YouTube Channel follower and making her 100th sale, the downstairs space is becoming a burgeoning business that is all about art. 

Torgerson creates junk journals – a handmade book created by repurposing found materials like old papers, magazines, packaging, and other ephemera.

“I’ve always loved to journal,” she said. “I have journals and diaries from back in third grade. Some kids, their rooms are filled with toys, mine was knee-high with paper and books. I was in yearbook class in high school and I remember thinking this would be fun if this was just a book of only people I like, just my friends. That’s how my scrapbooking obsession started.”

Torgerson’s already unique take on journals have been created for businesses, family-members, and customer-requested baby books and that led to the beginning of junk journaling.

“It’s kind of a merging of my scrapbooking and journaling,” she said. “And now I make them for all kinds of people and it’s all made out of otherwise recycled materials.”

That is a nice way of saying what most people would consider junk or trash. There is no such thing as trash to Torgerson.

“It’s somebody else’s junk but I love it,” she said. “Old magazines, maps, old music paper, my books are made out of recycled materials like granola and cereal boxes, junk mail—I’ll collect it and turn it into awesome. It could look like anything. Old comic books and I have newspapers that are over 100-years-old.”

When it comes to acquiring all of this “stuff,” Torgerson has not had to do all the work herself.

“People from across the United States send me packages,” she said. “They send me fabric, string, little pieces of metal; it’s crazy what they send me. I love it. It’s like Christmas. Lots of the local ladies love cleaning out their sewing rooms and their own craft rooms.”

Recently making her 100th sale brought a surreal sense of accomplishment.

“It is incredibly crazy because when I started doing this it was like, ‘What are you doing, Kat? This is useless. This is somebody else’s junk!’ But I just really like it and I took a leap of faith. I love this for a reason, so I just went with it,” she said.

Torgerson has books in local stores with plans of expanding to Vergas, Walker, Park Rapids and I’m working my way toward Fargo, as well.

“It’s useful art,” she said.

Torgerson will make use of anything and has a large collection of lace, ribbons, tassels, paper doilies, all sorts of vintage papers.

“All the closures are made from broken jewelry,” she said. “And I love taking images out of books. People send me books and magazines, old catalogs, album covers, old receipts and patterns. All of this stuff would have been thrown away!”

Kat’s Junk Journals are very interactive, something she uses to energize those who write in them.

“These books are way more inspiring to write in than just a normal notebook,” she said.

Each book is unique and some are holiday-specific, like a Halloween-inspired journal.

“People are huge fans of Halloween year round,” she said.

Torgerson’s books are custom-made, literally, for gift shop shelves. Her art room smells like a gift shop from the intermingling aromas of so many vintage items. 

She was recently given large bags of lace that she is turning into gift bags for an upcoming bridal shower. All around her art room are boxes and trays of similar items and one can simply stare around the room and feel like traveling through a time warp.

Torgerson’s work is analog art in a digital world and that is what makes it stand out.

Some of the books are made for herself, like a cookbook that includes photos of her two children growing up and helping her in the kitchen.

“The kids will look back one day and say, hey, how do you make mom’s custard pie and they’ll be able to see pictures of us all together,” she said.

Torgerson also has her own way of turning things vintage like tea-staining paper or using onion skins to do a similar job.

“I can’t throw away onion skins—they’re perfectly good,” she laughed. “I love using these beautiful pages in my junk journals—they give so much character to them.”

The leftover tea and teabags do not go to waste either.

Torgerson has found a use for nearly everything. She makes her own storage bags out of cereal box liner bags.

It is difficult to even find an unused piece of scrap in a room full of scrap.

“None of my fabric goes to waste,” she said. “If I have any scraps I just sew them into long strips to make a ribbon.”

Torgerson recalled an inspiring moment when it came to trash back in 2002. A friend was staying at her home and working at the dump. 

“His job was to dig a new hole and move that new garbage into the new hole,” she said. “He was finding the craziest stuff. Old magazines, old cereal boxes, everything was perfectly preserved in each of those plastic garbage bags. There was nothing decomposing.”

It changed her perspective on garbage.

“This is perfectly good junk! “It’s a beautiful mess!” she said. “It’s like my husband says, I like to take big pieces of paper, tear them into little pieces of paper and then make them into big pieces of paper again.”

For more information Torgerson can be reached via her personal Facebook page or watch the making of examples of her work on her YouTube Channel: Kat’s Junk Journals @kattorgerson2869

With growing sales, Torgerson has seen her art travel around the world with the furthest traveled journal now residing in Holland. 

“I sell them faster than I can make them sometimes,” she said.

Kat’s Junk Journals can be found locally at: Funky Junk Thrift & Consignment Store and Corner Collective in Frazee; Vintage ‘N’ Vogue and the Ambience Salon Boutique in Detroit Lakes.