Aimee's Artist Statement
When I was given this project, so many ideas flowed into my head. There
was this battle going in my head about what I wanted to do. I had many ideas
but I kept knocking them down because I didn’t feel like I had enough time or
materials to accomplish what I wanted. The project that Ms. Hull assigned was
to turn recyclables or trash into a piece of work. This project sort of piggy
backed off of our previous project where we made bottle cap posters.
My thought process was to go through a list of recyclables and see if I could make anything out of them. However, I started wonder, Why recyclables if they can actually be recycled? I thought my project should be made out of something that is not able to be recycled. It would be a more effective way of helping out with the environment and it would make sense to use something that can’t be recycled because it would be going towards art instead of wasting away.
My original idea was to make a collage out of light bulbs shaped as a human brain. Once I had the collage of light bulbs together I would break some of the lights bulbs in a area on the brain to symbol the damage it could do. Light bulbs because you can’t throw them in the recycling bin and not everyone choose to carefully package them and properly dispose of them. The dangerous toxins that are released mercury that can damage your brain and other parts of your body. I thought that would be cool but 1) I didn’t know where to get all those light bulbs, if I brought them I didn’t think that would help either and 2) I wasn’t sure if it would inspire anyone to do the same thing or ‘recycle their light bulbs properly’. So in the end it might not have been a ‘cool’ idea.
Then I came to thinking about this plastic bag video I saw in my physics class last year. I learned that plastic bags takes about anywhere form 450 to 1,000 years to break down. And between that I can used to hold your lunch, pick up your dog’s poop, fly away until it gets caught on a fence or even the throats of birds, or swimming in waterways and into the throats of fishes.
And then I came across this blog with this idea of taking all the plastics bags in my home and fusing them together to make a bigger and durable bag that I can use everyday and take with me everywhere. I wanted to make something that would be handy and that even I would use. I used scissors, iron, copy paper, thread, sewing machine, and of course plastic bags. I would cut off the handles and the bottom of the bag. If there were ink on the bag (which majority of my bags did) I would open them up and turned it inside out. Then folded them in half a couples of times or you can layer that bag with a couple more bags. Place it on top of the copying paper and then put another page of copying paper on top, sort of sandwich it between the two copying papers. Turn on the iron and swivel the iron on the paper a couples of times, make sure to get the corners because you need to make sure those are melted together pretty good. After that you have your patch! After that, I made a bunch more and sew them together. Here's my process:
My thought process was to go through a list of recyclables and see if I could make anything out of them. However, I started wonder, Why recyclables if they can actually be recycled? I thought my project should be made out of something that is not able to be recycled. It would be a more effective way of helping out with the environment and it would make sense to use something that can’t be recycled because it would be going towards art instead of wasting away.
My original idea was to make a collage out of light bulbs shaped as a human brain. Once I had the collage of light bulbs together I would break some of the lights bulbs in a area on the brain to symbol the damage it could do. Light bulbs because you can’t throw them in the recycling bin and not everyone choose to carefully package them and properly dispose of them. The dangerous toxins that are released mercury that can damage your brain and other parts of your body. I thought that would be cool but 1) I didn’t know where to get all those light bulbs, if I brought them I didn’t think that would help either and 2) I wasn’t sure if it would inspire anyone to do the same thing or ‘recycle their light bulbs properly’. So in the end it might not have been a ‘cool’ idea.
Then I came to thinking about this plastic bag video I saw in my physics class last year. I learned that plastic bags takes about anywhere form 450 to 1,000 years to break down. And between that I can used to hold your lunch, pick up your dog’s poop, fly away until it gets caught on a fence or even the throats of birds, or swimming in waterways and into the throats of fishes.
And then I came across this blog with this idea of taking all the plastics bags in my home and fusing them together to make a bigger and durable bag that I can use everyday and take with me everywhere. I wanted to make something that would be handy and that even I would use. I used scissors, iron, copy paper, thread, sewing machine, and of course plastic bags. I would cut off the handles and the bottom of the bag. If there were ink on the bag (which majority of my bags did) I would open them up and turned it inside out. Then folded them in half a couples of times or you can layer that bag with a couple more bags. Place it on top of the copying paper and then put another page of copying paper on top, sort of sandwich it between the two copying papers. Turn on the iron and swivel the iron on the paper a couples of times, make sure to get the corners because you need to make sure those are melted together pretty good. After that you have your patch! After that, I made a bunch more and sew them together. Here's my process:
Before and after:
Finishing product:
