Never throw anything away

Being a frugally minded person, (which could also be read as broke and trying to stretch my money as far as it will possibly go), I never throw any of my art supplies away. For example, if I use the seals from a plastic bag, I save the rest of the bag for a future use. Most of the time this simply means that I have to creatively store these materials until the blessed day I find a use for them. But every once in a while, an idea is immediately born out of a cast off material. This happened just the other day as I reworked a sculpture I am sending off to a show in Virginia next week.

Here are some images of the first few pieces;





Now this is by no means a complete sculpture. It is more the beginning of an idea. I will probably make a ton of these little things and turn them into a glorious floor installation. I have an idea in my mind's eye of how this will turn out, though that often changes along the way as I problem solve. So often materials are used and reused until I feel as though I have found a solution to match a material's specific properties. That is one of the things I love most about my work- it is constantly evolving. None of my pieces are ever "finished". They change with each installation as I find new ways to deal with composition, lighting, space, and all the quirks of plastic bags, toilet paper, or masking tape. It sounds bizarre but I love it.