Clearly We Have a Problem
as of Dec 2020
as of Sept 2021
summer 2023
Gazing Ball
as of Oct 2021
Party Pit
as of Nov 2021
as of October 2022
as of October 2022
Like many others, I aspire to live a zero/low waste life without sacrificing savings or sanity. Packaging has become an irritant, especially food packaging. I’m grateful for the programs and systems that do exist to help create a low waste life; composting, recycling, putting refuse into a Terracycle box, using Trex collection (to turn #2 & #4 flexible plastic into park benches), and the limited bulk bin store’s that offer zero-waste shopping if it's in your budget and area. These systems make low landfill living possible, but they aren't the complete solution. We need options that are easily accessible and affordable options that work within the infrastructure of the average persons day-to-day.
At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, I decided to act like a mollusk, taking an agitator - packaging material that I couldn’t recycle - and layer and seal it to create a pearl. The first pearl, Clearly We Have a Problem, started with an exercise ball that I layered clear plastic packaging sealed with marine safe epoxy to withstand the element as a garden sculpture. My hope is that these garden pearls will become precious but rare, like real pearls.
"It's well known that pearls are the result of parasites or bits of grit that irritate a bivalve's soft innards; the mollusc envelops these foreign bodies in layers of smooth nacre to protect itself (a fact that gem merchants rarely admit)."
Acting like a mollusk, I'm filtering the non recyclable materials that pass through my home to turning junk into conceptual garden jewels.
2021 Funding made possible by the Puffin Foundation.
project developed during Artist Residency in Motherhood
