Choose nature over convenience.
First principle: do no harm
Dear friend and loyal reader,
How has your summer been? Are you - like me - meeting September with a sigh of relief? Why might that be? There could be so many reasons. Personally, in dire need of a routine, I need a return to the rhythm of my days and weeks, mislaid somewhere around mid-July. Summer, I want to love you, but you can be so disruptive! Holidays, quick breaks, house guests, heat … not a recipe for disaster but surely a recipe for mayhem and that sense, once it’s all over, that NOW, NOW is when I need a holiday. So I welcome September. I’d like my new timetable please - and maybe new boots and and some fresh notebooks. Let’s get back to work!
Whilst January, generally, is seen as time for resolutions, reflections and new starts, for me it’s Autumn. Getting back into gear, stepping into a new season with an air of determination and purpose - and making good on promises I’ve made to myself and to Mother Nature.
In earlier letters I have mentioned my previous life as a wedding stationery supplier, abruptly upended by COVID and since superseded by a this new, nature focussed, thrillingly unexpected creative practice! I create wildflowers - mostly - using paper, and where possible I colour my papers using natural materials including foraged plants and kitchen waste, stuff that’s generally easy to find and straightforward to use. Well, today, I want to share something with you about how hard it can be to let go.
As a creative, making a living through my artistic endeavours - sometimes succeeding, sometimes not - it can be hard not to just take what’s offered. And yet. I’m not in this simply to make paper flowers. There is a purpose, a mission. I’m attempting to craft change. All the time, I look around me and I simply don’t understand what I see. In most areas of life, including paper craft and stationery manufacture, an incredible level of unnecessary and unthinking consumption resulting in mountains of plastic waste is not only tolerated, it is positively encouraged, and it makes no logical sense.
Recently I discovered the work of Mandy Barker, a photographer who has worked for 13 years to increase awareness of marine plastic pollution. Mandy’s work is incredibly beautiful - the subject of her photographs, not so much. This image is of fake plastic flowers found floating in the sea.
A collection of different species of discarded artificial flowers that would not exist at the same flowering time in nature should not be found in the ocean. The flowers were recovered from various beaches in Hong Kong over the past three years (includes; lotus flowers, leaves & petals, peony, carnation, rose, blossom, holly, ferns, castor & ivy leaves).1
How can this image not make you stop and think? Full disclosure: I have used fake plastic flowers, glitter board, acrylic diamanté, vinyl, foil (which comes on sheets of plastic) many times in my career as an event stationery designer, and I wish I hadn’t. I made a decision to cut out glitter and acrylics several years ago - at the time glitter was a huge trend. I’m happy to report that all the clients who came in and asked for glitter listened to my rationale (sheds micro plastics). But I can’t stop there. Sometimes something happens and you can’t look away and the truth is unavoidable - as when I recently created a seating plan using vinyl - the stuff sign writers use. I’m can’t lie, the finished article looked amazing - but looks can be so deceiving, just look at the waste plastic involved - you can see my feet for scale. I was horrified!
Next to my plastic waste I’ve shared another striking photograph from Mandy Barker: plastic nurdles, spilt from a cargo container in 2012 and recovered from the sea and beaches around Hong Kong. Beautifully arranged, they evoke the stars in the sky at night - but this plastic, unless burned, will be around forever. Nurdles are the small pellets of plastic which are melted down and used to make new objects.
We already know that plastic is now in our blood and in the placentas of unborn babies, I hope this alone will be enough to make us want to refuse plastic; to reuse what we already have, to act to stop manufacturers increased production, and to find alternatives to the material of plastic at the design stage.2
I don’t use plastics when I make paper flowers, and I just can’t ignore all the ways plastic (especially as a wasteful by-product) lurks in other areas of my working life. Going forward, this means: no more metallic foil (which comes on a sheet of plastic film); no more vinyl cut out and applied to mirrors; no more double sided sticky tape spewing yards and yards of plastic backing out at me. Change is hard, but taking these steps to eliminate plastic from my creative practice is simple, I want to, and more - I have to! Let’s not pretend it’s easy to move away from plastics in everyday life, but as an artist inspired by nature, why would I want any part of my practice to have a negative or destructive effect? Making this decision is a no brainer, and the more of us who change our behaviour, the greater the impact. So I AM going into Autumn with purpose. But the question remains, like the plastic. What do we do with it all?
Ah, sometimes when I start writing these letters, I don’t quite know where I’m going to end up. I hope that something in what this piece will land with someone reading, and inspire them to do something simple - maybe, if you are a crafter, stop using a glue gun? Choose nature over convenience. It’s time!
Thanks so much for reading! Until next time, and with love, Ling
PS USEFUL INFORMATION:
My Paper Flower Evening Classes start on 5th October in my Studio in Hoylake. The class is half full already so if you are interested then head over here quickly for more info or to book, and please feel free to share!
There’s also a fantastic offer on all one off classes including Paper Bomb Peony and Port Sunlight Rose - buy one get one half price - check out the details here
Mandy Barker, art breath.org interview June 2023
Mandy barker, art breath.org interview June 2023
This resonates so much! Working with natural color has really deepened the connection I feel with my materials, and thus my revision for plastic, for all the reasons you describe. It’s astounding how difficult it is to eliminate plastic waste from a creative practice or any area of life really but so, so worth it.