What I make - material nature
The materials I make with, and the quality of them, has always been very important to me. As an undergraduate we were taught to try and always use the highest quality materials we could. Partly so that the monetary value of the work could be high, but also as a way of honouring the hours of work we had put in to making. This has stayed with me. Therefore, during the RML module I had been making with a variety of high-quality textiles and jewellery materials that I had collected over the years.
I continued to do the same during the Colour, Materials, Finish (CMF) module and cemented the idea of re-use by creating an imagined speculative future world, Materialand.
I made a short video (fig.4) explaining that in this world there had been a global consensus that the planet has enough stuff and therefore all countries have banned the manufacture of anything new. The new things that people create are made from the materials they already have.
I used the materials I already had to create a collection of artefacts responding to a colour palette inspired by the language within the novel ‘Orbital’ by Samantha Harvey (Harvey, 2023). In particular Harvey’s descriptions of the earth as seen from the International Space Station,
“Mankind is the light of cities and illuminated filament of roads. By day it is gone. It hides in plain sight.”
and the Earth appears,
“luminous and humanless”
One of the artefacts I created was made using some cuttings from the plant Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’. I had collected the cuttings a few years before and had liked how they were hollow and seemed strong. I became fascinated by the little nodules (fig.6) where the leaves used to be and how shiny I could make the stems by sanding and burnishing them. Trying to think of ways to bring out these details, and through making and testing, I settled on dying the stems a deep dark blue using indigo dye (fig.7) and burnishing them further to bring out the shine. To highlight the nodules, I used pure shell gold, used in illuminating manuscripts, to gild the nodules into a perfect circle (fig.8). This, I hoped, would give the impression of the lights of mankind illuminating the night sky (fig.5).
Within the CMF module I received a wonderful, awe inspired, response to the piece made with the Sedum stems. I wondered if using waste plant stems and flowers could be my material of choice. It would help me stick with the mantra, ‘keep it simple’, it would be a challenge and it would feed my need for variety of material.
A friend in London had let me have some of her garden waste, picking it out of her amazing, and inspiring, insect habitat wigwam (fig.9).
Having been to the Collect craft fair for many years, and having researched galleries such as Sarah Myerscough, I knew that successful craft makers often focused their practice on one material. Wanting my work to be at a level where it could be exhibited in such places I wondered if I should focus on one material only. I felt slightly saddened about this, as one of the joys I get from making, is the adventure of playing with and discovering new and different materials.
I began by working with the Angelica stems I had collected. I noticed what it was I liked about them (strength, hollow, circular, silvery) (fig.10) and tried different jewellery and textiles making techniques in order to showcase those details (fig. 11 and 12).
In creating rings, by sawing thin sections of the Angelica stem (fig.13), I could immediately see how they could become chain.
I approached making Angelica chain in the same way a jeweller would make chain from silver or gold. Creating solid and open rings, then connecting two solid rings with an open ring and soldering the open ring shut (fig.14). But how could I shut my open ring when the material was made from wood? And how could I do it using a natural material that sat well next to the Angelica stem? Having used melted beeswax throughout the RML and CMF modules I decided to try using it to solve this problem (fig.15).
The beeswax had worked and I loved the way the light shining through the gap made the beeswax almost luminous. However, I felt this chunky chain was still a bit rough and unstable. The bark would flake off when handling and I knew it needed further development. As is often my go to answer, the next step was to go smaller and apply more finishing, i.e. sanding and burnishing. I found a smaller piece of Angelica and I concentrated on sanding and burnishing each chain ring perfectly (fig.16).
Having been continually inspired by material contrasts, I felt a chain of silver knots would sit well next to this Angelica chain. During the RML and CMF projects I had been making tiny knots from paper yarn. I had also challenged myself to see if I could make the same knots in silver wire. These silver wire knots brought out the silver sheen on the bark of the Angelica stem (fig.17).
The very positive feedback I had received about my Angelica chain and Sedum stem necklace, from the people I met during Testing Time, confirmed to me that I was on the right track in concentrating on making with plants. I made a connection with a local cut flower business, (Flowers from the Garden, 2025) (fig.18), and collected some of the waste cuttings (fig.19). As they were still quite fresh, I decided to hang them upside down and dry them. This not only gave me a chance to work with flowers but also opened up the opportunity to manipulate the stems whilst fresh and see if I could get them to dry, and stabilise into a certain shape (fig.20).
My mind was fizzing with ideas and I could see lots of directions I could go in with future making after my MA. However, for now, I needed to ‘keep it simple’ and concentrate on my final Synthesis project. Reflecting on how I had approached making with the Sedum and Angelica stems, I felt that I now had a clear way of working, or a methodology, for how to approach my making with plants.