bowls

ALL PAPER AND CARDBOARD WAS ONCE A TREE…

When I see a piece of paper or a cardboard box I see a tree.

I instantly have great respect for all paper or cardboard and my heart sinks every time I have to throw scrap paper or cardboard into a bin.

Here in Australia they are still pulling down ancient forests that have grown in this sacred land for thousands and thousands of years and turning the timber into woodchips to be shipped over seas to then be turned into paper and cardboard boxes.

Some of this paper and cardboard finds it way back to this ancient land to be used once and then thrown into rubbish bins.

Where is the respect and gratitude for these ancient trees, this sacred land that has grown them for so many centuries?

Trees that have taken so much energy and time to be created, trees that absorbed countless minerals and water to create such an advanced and elevated form, trees that were homes and food supplies to countless native animals and insects that have either been made extinct or are on lists showing them now being in various stages of danger towards extinction.

When I make an art form out of recycled paper or cardboard I feel such joy and love for those ancient trees and forests that have gone into their creation and am filled with over flowing gratitude for their sacrifices.

To elevate a scrap piece of paper or cardboard to a fine art level is reflecting the nobility of that original forest, that original ancient tree that went into its creation. To lift up and raise its destiny feels so good and very rewarding compared to the feeling of despair when throwing into bins towards degradation and a lower state of discarding.

Honouring those countless forests and trees that have been sacrificed to assist humanity to mature towards its true destiny of nobility is my creative quest.

ONE YEAR OF CREATING RECYCLED ARTWORK....

November last year 2010 I saw the exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia of John Davis and my entire creative world was turned upside down.

I had no idea then that my life would be so transformed only one year later.

I had tried for several years to get bowls made from clay and this was stopped every turn I made. Only after seeing John Davis exhibition and the way he used paper to create forms I finally found my avenue open up to endless forms and possibilities.

This year in Australia there has been many places that were very heavily flooded and that is a metaphor for what happened to me creatively.

The creative water flooded into all my parched corners of creative expression and cleaned out all the dross and stale air and filled my heart and spirit with fresh clean flowing ideas which I have only needed to follow.

One of the areas I creatively exploded into was making bowls out of what ever recycled material I was guided to explore.

One year to create so many diverse creations.

During the previous 15 years I was drawn to explore bowl making from diverse plant materials such as seaweed, sea grass, and native bush leaves.

I have included, at the end of this set, some images of these older bowls I made over those past 15 years.

HISTORY OF BASKET AND BOWL MAKING...

www.basketmakersco.org/history

FROM THE ABOVE LINK...Among the primitive crafts, basketmaking is one of the oldest known. Older than the weaving of cloth, more ancient than the early ceramic art, the interlacing of twigs into wickerwork is in all probability contemporary with first clipping of flint into arrow-heads.

One of the oldest complete Baskets in the world by courtesy of the British Museum (3000 BC). Basketmaking has been called the mother of pottery, as a potter used a basket mould long before the invention of the wheel. Pieces of Neolithic Age pottery show that the clay had been moulded around a basket structure. Stone Age pots often were ornamented with basketwork patterns. The picture in the slideshow above shows one of the oldest complete Baskets in the world (3000BC), courtesy of the British Museum.

Although basketwork is of a more perishable nature than pottery, due to the extremely dry atmosphere and the preserving sand, it is chiefly in Egypt that ancient baskets in a good state of preservation have been brought to light after being buried for many centuries.