Recycle, repurpose, reuse

Recycle, repurpose, reuse – the joy of making in a pandemic.

I’ve always had a fascination for lovely papers. Thick brown paper around a bunch of flowers, thoughtfully chosen wrapping paper from birthday presents, food packaging from luxury goods – those lovely colours, patterns and shiny bits of gold and silver – I’m a paper magpie!

I also find it very difficult to throw away the left over bits of sprayed paper from my stencilling process. So I have a few boxes of colourful spray-painted papers, all of which were crying out to be put to good use.

Over the past year as we have lurched from lockdown to lockdown I rummaged through the boxes and started to make paper garlands. The act of cutting, sticking, arranging and sewing was a very calming and meditative process.

Like many artists I have found the creative process both a burden and an escape during this last year. Creativity is a fickle thing, sometimes it’s fizzing around like an excited insect and other times it’s nowhere to be seen.

I found choosing papers, patterns and colours and making paper birds and other shapes filled the gap when I couldn’t print and paint. It was a mindful process and a great way to turn discarded packaging into beautiful decorations.

I’ll be showing my lockdown garlands at York Open Studios in July and at Art and York later in the year.