Growbags with an Orange View

Growbags with an Orange view, fused plastic collage with stitching 17 x 18cm

I began this week by looking at Alice Mumford's 'Still Life in Window'. it was sitting on the table as I'd shown it to Jos. I had collected two Sainsbury's bags (one with something I bought at the carboot sale and the other because I didn't have a bag in the car).  Earlier I had done a survey for my friend's daughter for her art foundation and I found myself choosing orange as my colour of HOPE, an outlook of orange, a sunny view. 

Mumford's painting has a series of rectangles and squares - a sash window opened from the bottom, a table, a view and walls. Although I had plenty of blues in my dining on plastic bag, I thought I'd work differently today, fusing blues over different colours to get a different range of blues. I cut up whites, creams, blues, oranges and  then a few greens. Instead of making a whole piece and cutting it up I fused five smaller pieces, abutting  colour next to colour in ways that felt exciting; then I cut them up, moving them around until I was ready to assemble my collage, ironing each piece to another to make a squarish shape.

Last weekend we planted up some pots of tomatoes.  I had been instructed to use tomato growbags as my compost.  The mustard is the grow bag and an exciting new colour for me! The last piece I added to the collage was the lemon yellow near the middle.

Seeing the Howard Hodgkin exhibit inspired me.  Those portraits! As I look at this I can almost see H H.  Perhaps I should make a series. Alice, Howard, etc…?

Highland Spring Greens

Highland Spring Greens, fused plastic stiching and paint, 21 x 21

We've been eating a lot of leftovers and our glut of chicken eggs so it was lucky that while cleaning up I found a bag of plastic I brought back from the lakes that I had forgotten about.  While staying in Seathwaite, we bought all our groceries at Booths.  The plastic bags are a grey blue. The cottage didn't have towels and we hadn't brought any so I got a big blue bag from the shop where I bought them, as it was raining… the lettuce bags had fuscia and this week I got a big bag of spinach.  Then there is that forest green from Fishers. But my favourite plastic was the purple to lavender of the Highland Springs water wrapper.

The collage got dark very quickly and it was only by layering and ironing some pieces onto white that I was able to create any movement and depth. I wanted to evoke our hike, again, but through a kaleidescope of time.

I was disappointed not to be selected for a few things this week and in response I made a pile of mail art, using plastic.  That was curative. I began this yesterday and went to sleep and then to London on what I needed to tie this piece together.  To me it was obvious so I came out this evening to mix some carmine, magenta and burnt umber.  After that it needed a little prussian blue and white paint.  Now that it's all done, I can't help seeing something of Maine where the mountains meet the sea.

Happy Hour with Peanuts, High Stile

The title for this piece comes from a Paul Klee quote, ' Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter." 

I began with the latest pieces of plastic I had acquired: a Marks and Spencer's bag, a Jacobs cream crackers packet, a bag of mixed nuts, salad bags, and a Doriano biscuit wrapper.  I added a bit of that kelly green from an old RA mailing (not members this year) because I needed that. I had been thinking about Klee, Mali Morris - she's coming to talk in Colchester on Friday, Howard Hodgkin and Rothko.  In my mind these people gravitate towards bold shapes and colours. The Marks and Spencer's bag and my recent foray into grids for Nichola Orlick's exhibit in Kyoto was still in the back of my mind. I had finished putting a portfolio together for something coming up, so felt light, happy.  It was happy hour.

With my stitching I like to accentuate colour relationships, to move them back, bring them forward and the colours in the frame seemed to make the most of the inner life of the happy hour. It was hard to keep it simple but I resisted the temptation to complicate things.

High Stile was where we stayed in the Lakes.  Happy Hour in HIgh Style says Jazz to me.

Fishers, Werthers, Coffee & Watendalth

Last week we were walking in the Lakes. When I say walking, I mean walking, and in all weather.  The first day we found snow at the top of Great Gable.  One of the highlights of that almost six hour walk was when Hudson made coffee on the side of the mountain. The only downside was that we knew weather was coming and some of us didn't have gear that would protect us adequately.  Thanks to two trips to Fishers, now we do.

The second day we walked in the pouring rain to Watendalth. My memory of that was the loose stones and the bridge to the village. There was a lot of zig-zagging to avoid slipping, and we were all a bit stiff and weak in the knees from the day before. 

The third day we went to the top of Robinson.  Although it was raining and misty, the very red soil captured my imagination and reminded me of a walk long ago to the top of Mount Kenya. Patrick passed out the Werther's Originals on the way up, but on the way down we were holding on for dear life to fences, gorse, moss, branches -everything - down the steep path.  It was a pity when we got to the car and discovered we didn't have the keys and had to walk another hour and another 1500 feet to the other car, rain still pummeling us. 

This piece is full of layers, feels rain splattered and weathered, to me.  As I tried to make these thoughts abstract enough to feel successful, I fear I lost some of the enthusiasm I felt as I walked.

It's all about the packaging!

Lured by 'French Toast' Turquoise - fused plastic collage & stitching 15 x 15cm

When Patrick returned from Ethiopia he brought me some presents.  Although they were beautiful, I have to admit being as least as excited about the plastic bag.  That bag formed the basis for this collage.  

While Patrick was away I had been doing a big pastel drawing of a 2 meter long still life I had put together in the studio. The dominant colour is red so the red polka dot bag that the Ethiopian earrings came in spoke to me. I also found two balloons this week, fuscia and pink and that was perfect too as there is a fair bit of both those colours in the follow-on six-canvas-painting of the same still life set up. The final main colour in the still life is turqouise and as I gathered my plastic this week it was the plastic I bought because of the packaging that made this collage relate so perfectly to what I've been thinking about in my painting and drawing.  The intention happened somewhere in the middle of selection. 

I was sick while Patrick was away and pretty much ate leftovers every day and night but I did go to the grocery store on one occasion. I shopped purely by colour, though. I found myself walking down the biscuit aisle and chose something I have never bought, never imagined buying and had never tasted - 'french toast'.  It is quite sweet and I wouldn't buy it again, but I did eat it all and so it was obvious I would use the plastic this week! The turqouise wrapper of the 'french toast' is a little shimmery too. 

The collage and the painting have a similar sort of ratio of colour. Gillian Ayres was whispering to me.

Woodchips and Cherry Coke

Woodchips and Cherry Coke fused plastic collage and stitching 11 x 12 cm

While walking the other day, I found a sunbleached cherry coke wrapper.  I also discovered that I had found some plastic the week before, so I dipped into that plastic as well.  And I finished off the chicken's woodchips, so I had that to add to the pile. Exciting things like stripes from a caramel wafer bar (found plastic) and the fuscia of a cherry coke wrapper, do not guarantee an exciting fused plastic collage. Even the lavender of a rocket salad wrapper can die under the iron.

I arranged and ironed and cut and ironed and after a while the plastic was tough and the colour was getting stained from the melted ink.  In the end I cut things down to about 11 x 12 cm, pulled some pictures out of a book I keep around (someone's funny family photos) that I bought in a Stowmarket charity shop, dabbed a bit of color on the faces and clothes and began to sew.

I'll put some UV varnish over it and probably send it out as mail art. This one is a curiosity and was demanding to complete, in the way an over-worked painting can be.

Fishing for Biscuits

Fishing for Biscuits, fused plastic collage with paint and stitching, 21x21 cm

I have had a 'Tanzanian cold'.  Whether it was that, or the fact that I found no plastic by the side of the road, I had a limited amount of plastic to play with last week.  It also took me quite a few days to complete, but maybe that's a good thing? I have been thinking and looking more than usual, over time. 

As I began composing the piece, the colours made me think about Peter Lanyon again - I was soaring through the horizon in a glider.  But after assembling and resassembling, the sea declared itself. There is a bit of blueberry wrapper, the black of a Sainsbury salad bag.  Plastic turned over to make it grey and that shocking blue shimmery blue of a package of biscuits I couldn't stop eating.

Mozarella & Mangoes at the Pier

Mozarella & Mangoes at the Pier, stitched fused plastic 23 x 23cm

As well as plastic from two kinds of Mozarella & mangoes, this week's fused plastic collage also has found plastic (see yellow and black on right), papery plastic from a salad greens bag and some new toilet paper plastic.  I have to admit to buying a different brand of toilet paper just for the lavender plastic - shopping has never been so complicated! 

As I assembled the pieces and cut them up I was thinking about Peter Lanyon.  My point of view is looking down and out.

I have started a sketchbook project and before I had finished this, I drew from it in my sketchbook which is an altered book…

Mozarella & Mangoes at the Pier (sketchbook)

Carrot Orange Downriver

Carrot Orange Downriver - fused plastic, paint and stitching, 23 x 23cm

On Monday I gathered my plastic from the previous week and began assembling pieces and fusing.  It was the evening and  my finger hurt, my eyes were having trouble focusing and the plastic smelled particularly toxic.  I had lots of ideas and hope, but when the majority of fusing was finished the plastic had shrunk and twisted and although there were lots of exciting places I felt the the result wasn't strong.  So I began cutting it up and as I did I remembered it was Valentines day on Wednesday, so I found some pink and took off on a different path and had something a little corny but pretty to give the following morning - I don't let failure get me down. 

This is my second attempt at this week's plastic.  The centrepiece was a bag of mini cheddars I found while walking. I had lots of green organic carrot bags, some potatoes and Patrick's Private Eye wrapper. Also, Pamela returned some books in a bag I asked if I could have that came from Cornelissen art shop.  Turning the plastic so you have the right side and the wrong side results in different tones.

Before I began cutting, assembling and fusing I looked at Barbara Rae's Sketchbooks. I got the feeling of England's waterways in my veins and thought about a trip I'd taken to Flatford and the Stour River to draw with Ruth Philo. When I had my fused piece I kept thinking about Rousseau and then I started to paint the framed area.

Beetroot and Ties

Beetroot and Ties, fused plastic collage with stitching, 16x16cm

A few weeks ago my friend, the poet and educationalist Jeni Smith, gave me a couple of bags she had collected: beetroot, parsnip and vegetable crisps. They are deep colours and the plastic fuses well. Patrick had also been eating crisps: and his bag was fuchsia with black (ridged popchips - smoky bacon flavoured). That bag was silver lined so tricker to use. I may have had one or two of Patrick's crisps, but this fused plastic collage is a mixture of my dining and that of others. The wonderful turquoise comes from the bag that held the handle tie freezer bags. Other plastic comes from  potatoes, carrots, toilet paper and  there was a red bag I had that I needed to use in order to create the intensity beetroots need. As I worked I wanted to evoke a sense of the movement of unearthing root vegetables - red sky at night.

Potato Famine and Found Plastic

Potato Famine and Found Plastic
fused plastic collage with stitching, 21.5 x 22.5 cm

What I noticed as the week wore on was that the plastic I was generating wasn't the most suitable for my collages. In fact, only potatoes,  carrots and ice came in bags that melt without shrinking and stinking enormously. While walking, I found a range of gold and yellow pieces of plastic, though, a bag of quavers (with aluminium inner which is tricky, but I can make work), a balloon,  and some tobacco pouches that needed lots of cleaning to use. As I moved the pieces around on the ironing board to find a 'landscape', I knew I needed a canary yellow to pull it all together. 

Week one - Bananas, gloves, tortillas and lemons

Bananas, gloves, tortillas and lemons - fused plastic collage 23cm x 23cm

Week one - Bananas, gloves, tortillas and lemons

I have been making fused plastic collages (recycling packaging and plastic bags that I have used, have found, or friends have brought me ) for the past five years. During this time, I have explored different motifs, given myself 'rules' and collected lots of plastic in just about every colour.  My plastic is sorted into big boxes by colour and I have a bin with unsorted plastic and a few boxes with leftover pieces that I have fused, or cut down that I might use later. There is some plastic which is better to use than other plastic, Some smells toxic and I hate to use it, but I keep plastic that I know will give me trouble just because of its colour, its texture or its sparkle. I have worked out ways to use the bad plastic through trial and error. 

 Earlier this week  I dreamed up a new weekly challenge and began collecting plastic for it.  It may or may not inspire a new collection of work. I respond well to limiting my materials in other media, so I thought it would be a good experiment to try to make a fused  plastic collage limiting myself to the plastic I collect that week.  I imagine the outcome as being very related to what we eat and do and will name the pieces accordingly. I expect I will need to 'cheat' from time to time and raid my plastic boxes for just the right colour to tie things together and I will allow myself paint.