Today, 22 April, is World Earth Day.
We should be thinking about our environment every day but our frenetic lives mean it can easily go to the bottom of the pile (generally under work projects, supervising homework and despairing of piles of washing that never seem to diminish).
I’m as guilty as the next person and so my own personal contribution to saving the planet largely consists of frequenting charity shops for ‘preloved’ clothes and objects (which we used to call second-hand until they got a radical PR makeover) and collecting plastic rubbish when I go to a river or beach.
I was first introduced to the problem with plastic in our waters when I stumbled across the work of Michelle Costello aka @smartie_lids_on_the_beach on @etsyuk five years ago.
I’ve now got several of her pieces and they bring me daily delight (there are three in the picture below) and I’ve been inspired to pick up plastic litter and do something creative with it ever since (like the one above).
Technically, we shouldn’t be able to make art with plastics in this way: the abundance of different colours and shapes is a wretched sign that there’s way too much out there to begin with.
In the meantime, making art with stuff that would otherwise be swilling around in our rivers and seas seems the way to go.
Martha, The Colour File x
