Creating with junk....

As a fun idea, our group decided to do a recycled project in 2010....    Each member could choose 2 items which gave us 8 articles to create something with....   Plastic veggie bags, string, soda cans, corks of wine bottles, rusted nails (woodwork type), newspaper, sweet wrappers and tumble dryer lint had to be transformed into an art piece...!   It was amusing how we collected stuff and a section of my studio looked like a waste dump....  

There was nothing pretty to inspire me, no interesting fabrics, no lovely beads, threads or awesome scene from nature...., just junk!    Inspired by my friend Brenda Dickeos who used teabags in a previous quilt, I decided to incorporate teabags in my piece....  

I read the newspapers (one item on our list) with more interest than usual as I wanted to make a newsworthy piece.....   The world was rocked by terrible earth quakes in the beginning of 2010 and we were regularly reminded of the devastation of these natural disasters by regular photographs in the daily press.   I started collecting articles and pictures of the devastating quakes in Haiti, Chile and China - the images reminded me of the chaos of the heap of junk in my studio....

I prepared a small panel with the tea bags using textile podge medium to secure it to a fabric background.   As I used Rooibos teabags, a rich rusty colour pigment seeped through the podge.    I embellished this panel with all the items on the list to create the rubble and chaos of damaged buildings ......    I melted the veggie bags, painted the tumble dryer lint with fabric paint to make it more stable, cut strips of soda cans which I twisted, pressed holes in slices of the corks and glued the small pieces down, cut the sweet wrappers and stitched it together using a needlelace technique, couched string down to show cables in disarray, rusted nails glued down (poles) etc, etc....  

Natural Disasters 2010 - Centre Panel

This small panel was quilted before it was placed off centre on a bigger piece of fabric which was covered with script from various newspapers telling the horror stories of the various earth quakes.    I also used captions which I placed randomly over the articles.    The newspaper cuttings was also secured to the fabric with textile podge medium.    I used watercolour artist paint on the wet podge medium to add some colour to the newsprint section.  

I did not like the dimensions of this piece so far and decided to add sections at the bottom of the quilt, very much like a Ndebele skirt.   This way I could also balance the colours used in the centre panel.....   I prepared small  teabags sections as basis and podged newspaper pictures of the various quakes over it which seemed to do the trick.    I made beads from the corks, soda cans, newspaper and added wooden beads to hang between these small picture panels.     I made cords using perle threads to finish off the raw edge around the quilt and secure the small panel to the bigger quilt.

Natural Disasters 2010

It was a rather strange quilt to make and I still don't have strong emotions about it....     But, it also reminds how precious life is which can be cut short at any moment....   Carpe Diem....