We’ve all seen the headlines about people leaving the Bay Area: artists and teachers, families and 20-somethings fleeing the housing shortage, the cost of living and the traffic. What about the people who are staying put? In this monthly column, Creative Lives, we talk to creative professionals about living in a rapidly changing Bay Area, why they stay and how they make it work.

Name: Austen Zombres

Work: Recycled collage artist

Home: San Francisco’s Sunset District

Years in the Bay Area: 6

Why I stay: “San Francisco gives me everything I need for my art.”

Austen Zombres’ art seems almost impossibly precise, as if each work is laser-cut or perhaps even computer generated. With his layered collages, he elevates everyday objects etched into the American psyche — iconic sneakers and snack foods, french fries, cigarettes — then often surrounds them with pristine white space. It’s hard to believe that his art is made with materials sourced from San Francisco’s waste.

Poppin’ art

Clean-cut and eye-catching, Zombres’ recycled artworks have the punchy impact of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup paintings — but without the paint. Zombres meticulously hand-cuts the brightly colored pieces that make up his collages, and doesn’t allow himself to use pens, pencils or paints in his work. Etching gives them depth when needed. He buys just a few items: X-Acto blades, glue and, when he can’t find reclaimed ones, sturdy backings for his pieces. Everything else in the collages — paper, plastic or cardboard — comes from the waste bins and streets of San Francisco.

Zombres uses a variety of techniques to create dimension and the illusion of shading: a piece of cardboard with a color variation mimics the metallic shine of a gold-toned lipstick case; yellow strips bend ever so slightly to create the light-and-shadow of crinkle-cut fries. Two pieces of black paper are glued together, then finely chopped to create a multidimensional sprinkle of sesame seeds atop a collaged hamburger. One detail he’s particularly proud of: a depiction of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos using tiny shaved bits of dark red cardboard to mimic the uncanny flavor dust on the real thing.

With the clean aesthetic of his collages and his strict set of self-imposed artistic rules, it’s not surprising that Zombres is influenced by the Japanese art of kirigami, elegant sculptures created from cut and folded paper. A skateboarder and former cannabis grower, Zombres is also drawn to other aspects of Japanese culture.

“I really admire the organization and discipline I see in Japanese traditions,” he says. “Like the way a kimono is cut, how there’s no fabric wasted. That’s something you see in a lot of Japanese and Native American traditions — you use the whole animal, all of the fabric, you know? I wish I had more of that discipline.”

Mountain-top epiphany

Zombres began painting and drawing as a teenager in Glen Ellen, but his recycled collages originated from necessity while he was living on a remote mountain top in Sonoma. “A sushi restaurant in Wine Country wanted me to do a bunch of pieces for their restaurant, but I couldn’t get into town to buy art supplies,” he recalls. “So I decided I didn’t need paint anymore. I used the paper waste and cardboard that we had on the property and created a series of bento box sushi pieces out of paper. They paid me $1,300, and with that I moved to San Francisco.”

It wasn’t an easy entry. “I landed in the city broke, with the delusion that people liked my art enough to buy it,” he says. “I was essentially homeless, with $1,300 and a pile of half-made pieces of art I had made.” But the city proved to be a welcoming home for his work — he soon sold more than he expected and found rich sources of materials.

Treasure hunting

On a dim, rainy day in mid-December, Zombres is walking the streets of the Tenderloin neighborhood, collecting collage materials. His quarry today is color — specifically, the bright colors of cigarette cartons.

As he visits one liquor store after another, politely requesting their trash, the reaction is mixed. A cashier in a store on the corner of Geary and Leavenworth is dismissive, but the next stop yields treasure — a friendly older man pulls out a stack of empty cartons from under the counter and gifts them to Zombres with a smile.

His self-imposed artistic rules limit his palette. Purple and black rarely show up in his collages, since those colors often aren’t used on packaging. Another color challenge comes from the recent San Francisco law prohibiting sales of menthol cigarettes. To get the shade of green that’s only found on those cartons, he now needs to cross the bay to Oakland.

The economic equation

Zombres eats, sleeps and works in a 12-by-12-foot bedroom in a shared house in the fog-bound Sunset District. He spends his days at a small worktable, painstakingly crafting his collage art and sculptures. The room is filled with boxes, paper and pieces of colored cardboard, all sorted by color — the flotsam and jetsam of San Francisco.

He pays $900 a month for his room, and renting is part of his long-term plan as an artist. “I had to give up social expectations,” he says. “I’m never going to own a house, never going to have that white picket fence.” Fellow artist Shawn Whisenant, who passed away in 2014, was a formative influence. “He’s the one who really showed me that you can be an artist and not expect or (even) want to own a house in San Francisco. You can just be yourself and that’s OK.”

To make ends meet and get himself out of his room/art studio, Zombres works a series of jobs in coffee shops and retail spots across the city. He left his most recent job at the end of December, though he anticipates finding another one soon, in part for the human interaction. “I’ve been in my room just working on my art for a week,” he says. “I’ve sold five pieces, but I haven’t seen or talked to anyone.” In general, about 50% of his income comes from food service or retail jobs and the other 50% from art. That income, however, is unstable, with sales ranging from $200 to $5,000 in any given month.

Depending on their size and intricacy, each collage — built with layer upon layer of hand-cut pieces — might take a few hours to days or even weeks to complete. Zombres says he deliberately underprices his work, charging less than $1,000 for most of his pieces. “I maybe could charge more, but I want my art to be accessible,” he says.

Limited-time only

Zombres says his work isn’t necessarily driven by environmental concerns, but he knows his collages originate from a culture of excess and waste. He’s not holding his breath, but he understands that his work may have an end point if there’s a cultural shift in consumption.

“I know at some point, if we ever become forward-thinking people, what I do won’t be possible,” he says. “It’ll be a time capsule of what used to happen.”

Samantha Nobles-Block is a freelance writer in the Bay Area. Email: culture@sfchronicle.com.