Story development

I'm continuing to experiment with my chosen materials to test ways in which I can use them to make a whole variety of fascinating sculptural configurations. It's a challenge to persuade myself to notice new things that happen as I work - to allow a fresh thought to emerge - as if for the first time.

It is important to me to give my art pieces a connection with an idea, thought or story. I hope this suggests a thought or idea that engages the viewer beyond the visual presence of the art work.

I have been very aware of the polluting effect of the mass of discarded plastic thrown out in the seas that have been damaging life in the oceans and coastlines. So I was keen to make this current work with plastic materials reach out further to the viewer than the immediate physical fascination with my use of plastic materials.

I tried different ways of transforming the plastic surface by sanding down the shiny surface to a matt effect that was then receptive to to marks made with inks such as made in the sketchbook with a feather dipped into inks.

Cutting up the plastic bottles in different ways gives numerous pieces that could be stitched or laced together. I hoped this element would add an element to an underlying message related to a shape that was broken down, fragmented, discarded, cracked, dismembered, dissolved and disintegrating: maybe a list of words that could relate to how the ecological system was breaking down.

                        
Playing with the fragments of plastic bottle gave me the chance to look at ways of re-joining these shapes into the original form with associated meanings of 'mending' or 'making better' perhaps. I'm intrigued by ways of suggesting the idea of 'change', forming a gradual movement of one state to another. 

This ecological project seems to ask the question of how changes will occur and so I am keen to try to make my materials show changes by adding or subtracting, modifying sizes, intensifying colour. I need to observe what is happening in my hands - not wanting to miss the accidental, unpredictable and probably the most intriguing part to the process. I find this a more rewarding and creative way of discovery than to anticipate and guess what I think should happen.

Making rows of small holes around the edges of the cut shapes allowed me to thread or lace together with the debate of whether to make perfect or whether to allow spaces and gaps to form distorted or corrupted versions of the original.

It was very revealing to see what happened when twisting and making the shapes distort from the bottle shape and exciting to find shadows on my sunny working table.......

..... and dramatic lighting through the translucent materials showing the sanded and scratched surface of the plastic surface.