Nothing is Junk

The good thing about making artworks from found objects and recycled materials is that inspiration is all around: on the bush track, by the side of the road, in a neighbourhood skip - wherever you go, there's a beautiful feather or artfully twisted piece of wire begging to be picked up and used. The downside is that the amount of fabulous stuff lying around waiting to become art - pebbles, cloth, bones, driftwood, leaves, paper, seashells, doll body-parts, etc etc etc - can become overwhelming. Even with my own shed and art-room (spoiled, aren't I) my junk spills into every other room in the house. In the two years that we've owned the house I've been slowly converting as much as possible into things for us - cushion-covers, garden features, a mobile for the baby's room and one for Mum and Dad - and into artworks for exhibition and/or sale.
The image above is one side of a double-sided screen I made for a family friend - a commission - monoprints of leaves, hair, feathers and lace on various kinds of paper, including washi (Japanese paper, my favourite).
I've been making a lot of my own paper this summer, using native and introduced grasses, plum-tree bark, tiny scraps of silk and any scrap of paper too small for anything else. It's starting to get too cold to make paper now, but I tear up paper scraps all through winter, ready for the next sunny day. Any scrap of material gets cut down into blendable pieces, too. A cupboard-full of torn up paper fermenting in orange-juice containers - lovely.