Drawings of plastic

Here are some drawings of plastic bottles and plastic bags from my sketchbook, and a first experiment with stitching. I was trying to find beauty in things that are discarded, unwanted and environmentally damaging. I also wanted to communicate how something seemingly meaningless to one person can hold meaning for another - the red and green plastic bag came wrapped around homecooked food my boyfriend's mother had given him to bring to me. The bag reflects locality - local Midland's shop -- and also the sentiment of caring for someone else.

Another thing that did strike me was how the colours and patterns within plactic bottles change depending on what the bottle is placed on. I like this idea of garments looking different depending on how/where they are worn.

Appreciate and Re-value

I've been reading Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories – A collection of sustainable design essays, edited by Jonathon Chapman and Nick Gant (2007), and think some of the things Stuart Walker writes about in chapter 3, Design Redux, could be important to think about for my work...

Walker believes that not only do material possessions not bring happiness but also they are an impediment to happiness (p.58-59 and note 1). He believes we should appreciate what we already have and applauds designers who make use of existing products in new designs.

Walker believes by restoring or adapting old products:

 ‘…we show appreciation and demonstrate respect.’ p60.

Walker wants to find ways of appreciating products that still function but are no longer valued; that are old fashioned or slightly less technically advanced.

‘These products, which are perhaps 10-20 years old, have no deign cachet and therefore generally find their way into landfill.’ p.60.

Walker uses electronic/electrical goods as they become technically superseded quickly and cause a problem with disposal. The above statement could easily be applied to clothes (apart from the timeframe – which would be much less!) as I guess clothes are generally thrown out when they still function but are just 'out of fashion' – or faded etc. For this project I could reuse synthetic fabrics as they cause more problems at their end of life than natural fabrics, and so have a greater need to be reused.

SW has used a ‘frame’ to place his discarded objects in, in order to give them a new context and re-value them. He believes within this new frame ‘old’ or outdated qualities of the objects that may have been the reason they were initially discarded, actually become essential to the new whole. I think this is like worn vintage clothing, like a velvet jacket – if everything you wear looks old you might just look shabby, but if you wear an worn out jacket with a fresh bright dress it will be recontexualised and look ‘new’.

‘Products are associated with social standing and personal expression and so, as objects become old and shabby they are replaced. This re-presentation of objects within a specifically defined context offers one example of how older, perhaps deteriorated products, can be re-appreciated.’ p.67.

- I think this is like how like the quilts of Gee’s Bend were re-contextualised when they we displayed vertically in art galleries, rather than flat on beds. The ladies who made the quilts were also refered to as ‘artists’, whereas before they were a forgotten community.

Walker thinks it is better to design without the need to take the electrical products to pieces, as to do so would take time and resources (expensive) and would create waste. He explains that this relates to the first 2 (and what he terms the more important (p63)) of the 3 R’s – Reduce and Reuse.
 

- This makes sense, you can get most out of a product and create less waste by using it as it is – i.e. buying second hand clothes – this might work for fashion with vintage clothes which look unique and stylish. However, a lot of second hand clothes are not ‘fashionable’ or desirable and so need more attention and work to become desirable. Cutting up clothes to reuse the fabric - for patchwork, I think still falls under the heading of reuse, but obviously it takes more time and creates more waste than simply reusing the whole garment. It is possible to cut up the fabric and not create any waste – zero waste pattern cutting etc. If the fabric is mechanically or chemically recycled then it uses more energy, time and creates more waste than either reusing the whole product as it is, or reusing the materials of the product.

On the subject of (re)value, Walker states:

‘Walker and Chaplin (1997, pp165-166) have distinguishes several kinds of value that can be attributed to an artefact:

·         Artistic value – intrinsic excellence, aesthetic quality, significant content.

·         Use value – practical function irrespective of appearance and aesthetic attributes. (This can also include decorative, symbolic, memorial, ideological and political value.)

·         Sentimental value – private, biographical and emotional life of an individual.

·         Exchange value – monetary value is variable because of fluctuation in the market and the economy.’ p.69.

‘…ideological or even political value.’ p.70.

How can old discarded clothes achieve all 4 kinds of value? I wonder if clothes had more sentimental value in the first place, maybe that would out-weight the deterioration in appearance over time – maybe even the faded qualities would add value, showing the item is loved and used. I think artistic value relates to skill, time and craft rather than fashion – like Hader’s thoughts in her book about Amish quilts, 'Sunshine and Shadow', where she makes a distinction between ‘professionally’ (effeciently) ‘finely’ (carefully) worked stitches.

 SW explains that original value of the products he uses would have been usefullness and newness (fashion and innovation), as these attributes decrease over time the products lose their value. He claims he has restored value to the objects buy placing them in new compositions using his ‘frame’. He thinks that if the re-use of the product has sustainability at it’s core, it also gives it:  

Quilts, diamonds and inspiration

I'm very unhappy with my sketchbook at the moment, although obviously the point isn't to make a beautiful sketchbook, but to work towards beautiful textiles. I've been looking through some of my old sketchbooks though, and they seem to better record ideas and thoughts through drawing, they have less 'stuff' stuck in and more expressive drawing. I don't feel like my current sketchbook is working as either a scrapbook, journal or for drawing. Hopefully this blog will help me get my thought and ideas together better, and through reflecting on the sketchbook and my work I'll see what's working and what isn't. I think the other problem is that it's taking me a while to get back into reading, researching, drawing and making, because I haven't done it for so long, I guess the more I do, the better I'll get...

Anyway, here are a few more pages from my sketchbook and some images from the paper artist Peter Callesen:

Above: Pages showing similarities between precious gems and Amish quilts.

Above: Pages showing inspiration and things that remind me of diamonds - First page, top images by Richard Schur, bottom left is Louis Vuitton shop front, bottom right is Marta Marce. Bottom Page, left image is by Christopher Bucklow, I don't know who created the image on the right - sorry! I love the colours, and the way the colours are positioned together, and  the geometric shapes in the images.

Above: Some of my old freelance work, showing patchwork and pleating (I need to get better images!)

Above: Inspiration afor patchwork. Image on left is Chloe, with great areas of intense patching and pleating and contrasting plain areas, and on the right is Jil Sander, with gorgeous colour and delicate layers.

Above: Work from Gilbert and George featured in ES Magazine 7th Jan 2011. I like the repition of the images at the top of the page, making the postacrds look like patchwork, and I like the glowing colours in the lower images.

Above: Images of paper used to make 3d shapes. I like the paper alphabet, by Sonya Dyakova, because the light has to shine on it from a particular angle to see the words. Like diamonds, it would look different from different angles, and you can only read it in one place, otherwise it's a mystery.

The paper alphabet made me think of Peter Callesen's work. He's a great paper artist, and I like the way that the shape he cuts out of the paper to make the 3d shape from is as important as the created shape. He uses the whole of the material, and gets the most out of it, even the negative sections. Here are some images:




 

Total Beauty

I've been reading Edwin Datschefski's book 'The Total Beauty of Sustainable Products', Datschefski believes that it's not enough for products to look beautiful. He believes if products generate pollution or exploit people then they have a hidden ugliness. He believes if products are made in truly sustainable ways they have a 'total beauty'.

I like the way he thinks  about 'true beauty', not just surface appearances. However, in fashion, things still need to look good. Sustainable fashion can't be worthy and beautiful on the inside, but un-inspiring on the outside. But, equally in can't just look 'natural' but actually be made with unsustainable principles. I need to find ways of embedding meaning and sustainability within my textiles and also communicating that to people.

I think this quote puts our current consumption patterns into perspective:

'For example, over 30 tonnes of waste are produced for every one tonne of product that reaches the consumer. And then 98 per cent of those products are thrown away within six months. When you include these hidden impacts of manufacturing, we each consume our own body weight in materials every two days.' p.17.

I also thought this information was interesting in comparison to the information about gold from the Natural History Museum:

'Environmental damage from gold extraction is routine, for every ounce of gold extracted in Brazil, there are nine tonnes of waste, including silt and mercury run-off, which kills fish and other aquatic life downsteam.' p.18.

Finally, Datschefski writes that sustainability needs to be for everyone, not just a niche trend for well-off people. As embroidery can be time consuming to produce, and therefore expensive, this is something I need to think about. Do I want to produce a product or information?

Natural History Museum

I went to the Natural History Museum on the 9th January 2011 to investigate, through drawing, photographing, observing, and reading, the qualities of diamonds and precious stones. I thought if I could find out what makes these stones so eternally desirable then I could try and embed those qualities in my textiles to make them loved for longer.

You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear...

I was thinking about the phrase ''You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear", as that's what I do want to do (not literally) and found this posting on http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/26/messages/1199.html. So it seems some scientists did take the saying literally:

Posted by R. Berg on December 13, 2003

In Reply to: Re: Pig's ear posted by Ward on December 13, 2003

: : The phrase finder says that pig's ear means beer (a cockney rhyming slang). But, I have heard of making a pig's ear of something, meaning to make a bad job of something. Where does this come from?

:
: ::: The expression I'm used to is "you can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear" -- suggesting that some improvement projects of different kinds are doomed to failure. I've heard it used when someone has introduced a new friend and a critic points to a chequred past on the part of that individual and essentially says --- 'the cat doesn't change his spots'.
: Some years ago, a group of scientists who had more money than brains set out to convert the proteins and chemicals in a sows ear into a silky purse. They spent a great deal and were educated to the truth of this expression.

I heard that the scientists DID produce a silk purse from a sow's ear.'

So why the name?

I make and sell necklaces from eco-felt (made from recycled plastic bottles) on etsy.



A lovely girl who bought one of the necklaces to wear at a Christmas party sent me this message:

'Hi there the party was a success and my necklace made a great conversation topic. Good way to show that in proper hands recycled bottles can be more beautiful than diamonds.

Keep up the good job and have a very Merry Christmas!
Rita'

This got me thinking and I decided that my intention should always be to see if I really can make something more beautiful than diamonds from recycled materials. My reasoning being that no-one would ever throw out a diamond, so this could be a way to cut down consumption of clothing.