When I first went off to the big city of Spokane, WA to start my college career, there were two things that shocked me about living in a city. First, my feet had a hard time with perfectly flat sidewalks. I was tripping over nothing all the time. The most I had walked on such an even surface before that was from the car through the front door of the grocery store with my Mom. Second, worms crawling up on the sidewalk after the rain and dying before they can get back into the grass. Yes, I was that young woman that would take the time to try to move some of them back to relative safety. But in the spring, it was overwhelming and I would cry. It was one of many lessons on how our present mode of living is pretty heartless. Such intersections between the natural world and ours still leave me crying because you know what side loses most of the time. It's like the worst planet based rock/paper/scissors game in which plastic bags can best a whale. We can be such brutes.
I continued my college education at The Evergreen State College in Olympia WA. And there, I found kindred spirits who also battled their conscience and wills with our impacts on the natural world. How does one do no harm? Does one have to give up all creature comforts and succumb to wilds as the prehistoric people did regularly? My conclusion is that we can't go backward. But can we move forward with greater care? Yes, absolutely. I can't stomach life without doing that.
So, it makes sense that I'm pretty much a reduce, reuse, recycling freak, and I care deeply about wildlife and domestic animal rights. I was a vegetarian for 7 years because I was so against agribusiness and industrial farming practices. And I've been on a crusade against plastics in every aspect of our modern lives. My staunch stance is that plastics and helium belong in the medical field only. Did you know that when helium is released into the atmosphere it doesn't get trapped up there somewhere and float down, combined with some other heavier molecule? Nope, it' keeps floating out into space. Did you know that helium is a byproduct of natural gas production? Frack, no! Yes, actually, it is and that sucks. I regularly snub my nose at restaurants that only carry styrofoam take-home containers. That stuff is awful. 100 million years to degrade and dioxins. That’s all I’m going to say (shudder). Needless to say, I don’t use Styrofoam or hot glue when I am making bases for my projects. I make do with cardboard destined for recycling, and PVA glue with lots of clamps.
So a few years ago when I found I had a knack and a yearning for paper mache, I brought this thinking with me. Finding art that isn't destructive in some way is hard. Just the manufacturing of acrylic paints makes me wince. And although most of what I use is recycled house paints, I am still on the look out for better options. That is why I was so excited the other day to find a better alternative for plastic glitter. They make glass glitter! I've ordered some from Germany and I can't wait till it gets here.
There are always new hard to swallow discoveries as well. I love working with natural fibers. Being raised on a small farm, it was apparent the need to use all of the cow after butchering. It was respectful as well as practical. I figure if you are going to eat beef, you might as well wear leather. So if you are going to eat chicken, you might as well use the feathers, right? That is until you do a little bit of internet sleuthing and find out that the feathers are pulled off of live birds... repeatedly. Ostrich farms where the lovely froofy feathers are pulled out again and again as soon as they grow back in. Ducks living with naked breasts because the down on them is harvested again and again. I can't imagine their pain and I wish to never to be an unwitting partner in such agony ever again.
So, although you will see feathers on some of my items, it's only till I use up the stock I have. Waste not, want not. My own chickens provide me some feathers that I pick up off the grass after they are done with them. And I'm finding sellers on Etsy that do the same thing. So I am hopeful that feathers can stay in my mask and critter making. Bird feathers are fantastic, but I could never pull them out for arts' sake.
The craft of making paper mache takes its own set of attention to detail but this environmental/ ethical attention to details takes it to another level. That is the gift I give my clients. I think about where my materials come from and their true costs so my clients can relax knowing I've given them a quality product free from guilt.
If you are of like mind, please hit me up and let's talk. I certainly have a lot yet to learn. And there is a growing market of ethical and environmentally protective materials out there. I'm sure there is more that I don't know yet. So, don't keep me in the dark, I'm not a mushroom!