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I am constantly looking for ways to reuse waste materials. No rubbish leaves my studio, it remains until I find a way of using it. It forces me to be more mindful of the waste I create and as a result I make my equipment, materials and designs work harder and more efficiently. I'm also really interested in reusing waste from other industries in my work. All material is precious. It does however mean that I have all sorts of random stuff kicking about in my studio, some weirder than others!! So, I thought I should start giving you an insight into some of the more unusual materials in my repertoire, and this next commissioned piece just so happens to be a great example. Not only was it made from a waste material created by another industry, but it was also the first time I had ever used it...and I'm fairly sure the first time anyone had attempted such a piece from this material! *** However, I can't really talk about that just yet without touching upon the material that led me to it in the first place, which is Fordite. Fordite is a fascinating material. Also known as Detroit Agate or Motor Agate, it is an accumulation of multiple layers of automotive paint from overspray that has built up and baked solid. Its origins are from Ford factories in Detroit (hence Fordite or Detroit Agate) in the 1970s. As the paint built up over time chunks of it would be removed and disposed of to prevent obstruction. The story is that the material was taken by workers at the factory who, seeing the beauty in the multiple coloured layers, then began to cut, carve and shape it mostly into cabochons (rounded stones) for jewellery. As this was a material resulting from a now-extinct method of hand spraying, and the original factory has long since been closed down, genuine Fordite is now incredibly rare and difficult to get hold of. The UK version, from the Dagenham Ford factories, is even rarer! Due to the specific paint colours it is actually possible to specify the location and date of a piece of Fordite. I'm lucky enough to have a few pieces of genuine US Fordite and Dagenham Fordite in my collection... A few examples from my collection: Left: Dagenham Fordite (UK) - which is extremely rare Right: US Fordite This has led to lapidarists (gemstone cutters) looking out for other similar compounds to cut and turn into shiny things such as... - Surfite - the resin run-off from glazing surfboards - Bowlerite - cut from old ten-pin bowling balls - Boatite - the resin/paint run-off build-up in boatyards - Graffiti Fordite or Graffitite - a very recent material from America, many years worth of built-up graffiti paint harvested from walls All of these rely on the material being hard enough to withstand cutting and shaping, and since it's not being specifically made for this purpose it can be extremely unpredictable to work with! Supplier photo: Top left: Surfite A few examples from my collection: Top right: Bowlerite Bottom left: Boatite Bottom right: Graffiti Fordite In 2022 I was approached to design and make an anniversary gift from a husband to his wife. He loved my ethos of using unusual and waste materials so was keen for it to be something that could potentially be a conversation piece when worn on special occasions but also suitable for everyday wear. He sent me a fantastic photo compilation of the jewellery his wife loved wearing, and I could clearly see that she was attracted to bold colour and pattern with almost all of the pieces being made from resin or acrylic. Along with the couple's love of the sea and a specific UK coastline that was particularly special to them, I immediately felt that UK-sourced Boatite would be the perfect material - aesthetically, practically and metaphorically. So, me being me I suggested a bracelet made entirely from a single slab of Boatite. The idea of it really excited me, I did a fair bit of looking around and by all accounts no one has attempted this before!! I'd already bought a few cabochons from a lapidary who sourced a beautiful colourway of Boatite from a single boatyard in Norfolk, I really loved the jade-like shades and combination of opaque and transparent. And being resin it is ultra-lightweight. So I asked whether I'd be able to purchase some of the rough material from them and thankfully they very kindly agreed...and even sliced it up for me! In order to get a feel for the material and to choose the appropriate tools to make the bracelet I made a tester piece, freeform carving a ring from a single piece. I really enjoyed making this piece, I had a shape in mind before I started but found myself intuitively responding to the material. I'm obsessed with all the different patterns, textures and opacities of each of the layers, and the possibility of soft matt and highly polished finishes. This was such an important part of the process. The Boatite was really satisfying to carve but very easy to remove too much material if using too aggressive a tool or too much pressure. It also became very apparent that there were some irregularities and faults within some of the material that needed careful negotiating - fine cracks where the resin layers hadn't adhered together completely as they formed which resulted in being easily snapped, air bubbles causing beautiful pitted textures but also some weak spots and uncovering random bits of wooden dowel and painters tape! So, this being the ONLY slab of Boatite that was big enough to make the bracelet from meant some extremely careful planning and placement was needed. Designing around the material's natural shape and faults was exciting and challenging, to say the least! Top: Slab of Boatite rough with a template of the inside measurement for the bracelet overlayed Bottom left: A pesky crack in the material! Bottom right: Proposed design of the bracelet (using some Photoshop trickery) - incorporating an undulating shape that references coastlines and boats, the origins of the material  To give my client an idea of how the bracelet would potentially look, I made a model from waste paper in my recycling pile pasted together to form a stack that I could then saw to size and into the proposed shape. I was also then able to show my client what it would look like worn (luckily it was my size!). The piece needed extremely careful sawing! I'm not going to lie, nerves got the better of me on a few occasions so I had to do it in stages and walk away when it got a bit too tense!!   Left: Basic outer shape trimmed and inside marked out Right: Centre cut out, leaving a little bit extra for shaping (the centre is being kept aside for the client for a potential future commission)  As you would expect from me, ALL dust and offcuts were very carefully contained, reclaimed and stored for future reuse. As I carved and sanded the material it became increasingly evident that I really needed to respond to every millimetre of it in order to ensure the integrity of the structure, as I would uncover areas that had potential weak spots and I really needed to respect that. As a result, with consultation with my client at every stage, the inside of the bracelet took on a more organic shape than originally planned in order to avoid areas that were too thin or posed a risk of breaking. It's a way of working I really embrace, I love responding to materials in this way - it's a dialogue, a collaboration, and can bring about beautiful discoveries and directions. It was a very slow and mindful process of constantly being in the moment.   It ultimately produced a piece that was entirely led by the material, a dynamic harnessing of both spontaneity and control. My favourite way to create anything. I have since made a few more rings from Boatite [photos coming soon]. If you'd like a piece of jewellery made from this fascinating material, or indeed any of the other materials I featured here, please drop me a line via my commissions page below.
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All artwork and jewellery you purchase from me is accompanied by a card with a little bit about my work, the materials I use and information on how to stay in touch all printed on luxurious 100% biodegradable paper containing a mixture of wild flower seeds including Poppy, Daisy, Rudbeckia and Forget-me-not. It's important to me that my packaging and related 'paraphernalia' is as waste-free and sustainable as possible. And I just love being able to gift a little bit of nature that will live on and benefit not only our environment but also our mental health. So how do you plant your seeded paper? I've created a little step-by-step below to help you on your way to growing your own wild flowers. It is a very simple process and I find it quite meditative as a gentle, quiet moment to myself...or get your friends or family involved to share the experience. When should you plant the seeded paper? The end of April/beginning of May (or once the last frosts are over) is the perfect time to plant your seeded paper information card. Although, if you are planning to grow them indoors you can pretty much plant all year round as long as they are by a window. But being wild flowers, they will ultimately prefer to be outdoors and untamed! STEP 1: Tear up the card into small pieces (don't forget to photograph it first to keep the info, or sign up to my mailing list and follow me on social media to stay in touch!).  STEP 2: Soak the pieces for 30secs or so in water.  STEP 3: Layer the soaked torn pieces of seeded paper on top of soil in a pot or a flower bed.  STEP 4: Cover lightly with a layer of soil and then water carefully.  STEP 5: Patience! It could take a few weeks for the seeds to germinate. Keep the soil moist and warm (but don't over water as it will encourage rotting), then keep an eye out for those first tiny sprouts! I hope you enjoy the experience. Please do photograph your progress and tag me on Facebook and Instagram, I'd love to see how you get on! As it's now 2022 (I still haven't quite fathomed how that happened) I thought I should finally show you a few experiments I was working on last year! These will all be undergoing further development in a couple of months time, and I CANNOT WAIT to get stuck in and share their progress with you. These are a few Initial test pieces I made at the very beginning 2021 as part of my ongoing work following the London Alternative Photography Collective's Sustainable residency in April 2020. Resin coated photographic paper cannot be recycled due to this plastic coating, so I’ve been investigating many different ways of reusing it within my practice. In this experiment I was interested in creating 'gemstones' and material from failed/waste chemigrams that still featured the structural and ephemeral characteristics of the paper and the images printed onto them. Wearable memories, stories, moments, captured fragments in time. There's plenty more to follow including some exciting fusion of techniques! As many of you are aware, circular economy principles are integral to my work and it is my hope to ultimately not only create a closed-loop waste recycling system within my practice but also a means to collaborate with other artists to share and manage resources. Head to my other blog posts to see more experiments including intaglio prints using RC paper as a printing plate and electroformed RC paper pieces silver-plated from exhausted photographic fixer, a process developed as part of my work on the residency. ALSO... Experimental setting with alternative discarded materials          As mentioned in my previous post the work I've developed during and since the residency has recently attracted some attention, and not being someone who's particularly good at 'promoting' my work I thought I'd start a blog to document some of my projects. Particularly ones that are ongoing and potentially collaborative. The last 6 months in my studio have been a bit like an archaeological dig. Finding and rediscovering old work that was presumed lost (or disintegrated!!). These experimental pieces were instigated last year off the back of the Sustainable Darkroom residency run by London Alternative Photography Collective in April 2020. Small sculptural forms made from resin coated photographic paper, electroformed with recycled copper to then be silver plated from the fixer the photos originally emerged from. Reuniting the silver and paper. A cyclical process. I’d put these pieces ‘somewhere safe’ and then had to pack up and move, so didn’t manage to plate them at the time. It was wonderful to discover though that they had developed over a years worth of patina which I absolutely love, and hope to retain.    The next stage was to silver plate them from the fixer...**     Silver-plated chemigram...       I am so glad I did pursue this investigation as it's one thing to have big ideas but it is really quite something when those ideas actually work! It has definitely exceeded my expectations and I have many more experiments in the pipeline (some of which I mention in the publication This is (Still) Not a Solution) that are starting to look even more possible than I had originally thought, such as a series of silver-plated photographs, drawings and paintings. Of course, there are still plenty of issues to tackle particularly the accelerated tarnishing due to the sulphur content of the fixer but part of my work is to embrace the evolution of materials and artworks over time so I'm enjoying their transformation on an hourly, daily and weekly basis. In the spirit of the project I have been lucky enough to engage with a number of independent photographers and darkrooms to take used fixer off their hands to recycle the silver therein, so I should be good for raw materials for quite a few more experiments and have relieved them of the trouble of disposing it. I hope this may also lead to potential creative collaborations in the future. It's an extremely exciting move forward but the process is excruciatingly LONG and labour intensive. I'm just about to embark on a period back in the theatre world until April 2022 so further development will frustratingly be on hold for a little while. But taking a little step back I hope will allow some beneficial rumination on my train/tube journeys. I cannot wait to get going on the next phase! BTW #nevertrustajewellerwithcleanhands **Please note that I undertook a large amount of research and preparation to undertake this safely and used appropriate PPE and extraction at all times     My recent reveal on Instagram of the work I undertook during and have developed since The London Alternative Photography Collective's 'The Sustainable Darkroom' residency has gained an extraordinary amount of interest. So, I thought I should write a bit about my explorations and how it all started. At the start of lockdown 2020 I was delighted to be invited to take part in the residency. The collective organised 4 micro residencies over the course of a month bringing together a number of artists, researchers, scientists, technicians and academics to interrogate and challenge the environmental impact and sustainability of darkroom practices. I had been asked to contribute to the first residency of the series 'Recycle' which ran from the 1st til the 5th April, 2020. We would be 'looking at materials generated by the photographic darkroom, exploring new and pre-existing avenues for the ethical disposal of waste. As a group, we will also be considering the life and use of materials beyond the darkroom and their cross-pollination into other industries.' Originally the residencies were supposed to take place at Guest Projects in East London but had been very successfully moved entirely online. It certainly offered an additional layer of challenge to the project but I'm so impressed with how we all navigated it, particularly since it was the first time many of us had used the remote working techniques that we are all so familiar with now! The results of the residency were to be presented in the form of workshops and participatory events at the end of each week and then a symposium at the end of April, 2020. These were sadly postponed due to the pandemic but the publication This is (Still) Not a Solution was created compiling a great deal of the thoughts, ideas and experimentations from the project which can be purchased through London Alternative Photography Collective. Tales from the Residency Part 1Many of you already know that my work is rooted in what's discarded (physically and conceptually) and as an important part of my process I reuse, rework, repurpose and recycle as many materials as possible within and across my art and jewellery practices by incorporating remnants and waste from one piece of work to construct a new one. For example digital negatives from photographic prints then become resists for etching texture into copper or silver for jewellery or printmaking and are then turned into stencils or plates for printing and painting. All waste paper is recycled into surfaces for printmaking, drawing and chemigrams or elements for packaging my jewellery. Silver and wax offcuts and filings are melted down and reused… My current focus is to detoxify my processes as much as possible, to find safer alternatives to the chemicals I use for both my photographic and jewellery work and to continue to improve sustainability within my practice whilst retaining the quality and integrity of my work. The Sustainable Darkroom residency therefore provided the perfect opportunity to collaborate with other artists to learn and develop ideas and strategies. I was also very excited to discover systems that could potentially work across, bring together and benefit different creative mediums… It was an intensive week of experiments, research, online meetings, collaborations and talks. Our group leader immediately put us to work asking us to dig out failed/rejected photographic prints to recycle them into a workable clay. Resin coated photographic paper is notoriously non-recyclable so our group was tasked to pulp all the RC paper we could lay our hands on to test this idea. There were varying results! BUT me being me, before I pulped anything I wanted to try something a little different. I had a whole stash of VERY old VERY expired RC papers and photographic chemicals, so to start with I made a number of chemigrams. I allowed myself to create these in an entirely free and chaotic way, which was a lovely way to start the week!!       Anything I didn't like or just didn't amount to anything at all I committed to the 'Pulp Pile' except for one. There was a very faint white trace that I thought would make a really interesting etched line. I figured that I could scratch into the resin coating like a Drypoint plate and then etch using intaglio inks. So I scratched into it, rubbed in some ink and...  Not great. However, stupidly in my haste I hadn't soaked the paper first. So, I soaked some paper for 5mins blotted it inked up again and....  This was an incredibly exciting and promising discovery! I've since made quite a few more prints with varying degrees of success. Making each print is an intensely laborious process and quite hit and miss. Because of the nature of what the 'plate' is made of it can get quite sticky if the the receiving paper is too damp or the pressure of the press is just that little too much. There's been a LOT of 'failed' pieces and a LOT of mess! I will never get an identical print but I like that. The small variations make each one unique. And those 'failed' prints will be reworked to create new pieces. And thus is the nature of my process! I'm going to continue printing as many as the plate will allow and then I'll retire it to a frame of it's own because it's a beautiful piece in it's own right now. Like all the ancient historical time-worn wood blocks and copper plates before it. It will have come full circle starting out as a print, then as a means of creating new prints, to becoming a print itself once again. It is this cyclical way of working that really excites and motivates me. Tales from the Residency Part 2 - Hi Ho Silver LiningsSo, the main reason I was invited onto the residency was to contribute with ideas around the recovery of silver from photographic chemicals, as it is an environmental hazard if disposed of incorrectly plus it is a valuable and finite resource, and London Alternative Photography Collective were interested in whether it was possible to collaborate with the jewellery industry in some way. There are already systems in place in commercial photographic companies (including x-rays) to extract the heavy metal so that chemicals can be disposed of safely, mostly through the metal replacement process. I contacted one of my main silver suppliers to ask whether silver from the photographic industry was included in their Eco silver (100% recycled silver made from reclaimed/scrap silver from various industries) but it turned out that it wasn't. It seems it's too much of a faff for so little, therefore not a particularly viable source. However, I was really interested to see if I could set something up on a much smaller studio scale, with my cyclical process in mind. I did a LOT of research. It was also important to me to find as sustainable approach as possible. So, with RECYCLE being the name of the game I set up a small Frankenstein's monster-esque lockdown mini-electrolysis system in my studio made out of as many found and borrowed elements as possible. Being fairly early on in the lockdown at the time (and also being a stage manager) made for some serious (and safe) resourcefulness! I only ended up having to order two things that in 'normal' times would have been easy to source second hand. **I should add that full PPE and extraction was used which is essential as a small amount of Hydrogen Sulphide can be produced if the amperage is too high. I undertook a great deal of research and preparation to ensure that I could perform the experiment safely.** My idea to test out this set-up was to create a number of chemigrams using my batch of expired b&w resin coated paper and photographic chemicals, so as not to waste them, then recover the silver from processing these prints to plate a piece of copper from my scrap pile and be able to dispose of my spent chemicals in the appropriately safe manner. I won't go into the long drawn out details, I'll let the next photos do the talking...    Not bad for the first couple of goes. I really wasn't convinced that my fix bath would have anywhere near enough silver in it after processing just a few prints to amount to anything at all, but I was clearly wrong. Certainly preferable to the metal replacement process I tried... And it smelled even worse than it looked!!!  First trial of a piece of jewellery plated with the fixer. I love the varying tones and uneven texture, very much in keeping with my organic aesthetic. Tales from the Residency Part 3 - Pulp FictionThe answer to the ultimate question EVERYONE has been desperately waiting for... 'To pulp, or not to pulp' Well? Did I pulp? Yes. Yes I did. An hour tearing some failed resin-coated prints into tiny tiny pieces. An overnight soak. Another overnight soak. One more overnight soak for luck. Then pulverised in my 'vintage' Masterchef food processor, which incidentally I bought 25 years ago second hand from the Friday Ad newspaper when I was a student in Brighton.  I had LOTS of plans on what I wanted to try with it...    But, I'm ashamed to say that I then became a bit distracted with starting the Remnant print series that I abandoned it and ...  I did give it a little 'pulse' every day... I was convinced it was going to start growing a personality since at that point it had been sat for just over a month! Reminds me of when I was doing my GCSE art and growing mould from dregs of tea left in cups on my windowsill to draw/paint/embroider from and with. My mum was NOT impressed. Just one of many art-related perspectives we had a difference of opinion on, like the state of my lovely pink carpet gradually turning black from charcoal, and hanging out of my bedroom window flame painting and generally burning stuff (intentionally and unintentionally). Some things just don't change. I did make a few small forms with some of the pulp and then dried out and stored the rest to use again later. All the remaining water I bottled and reused to paint with. I experimented with electroforming them with surprisingly good results, but it was at this point my experimentations were halted due to having to pack up everything and move house! I felt compelled to continue the work, research and experimentation that we began as it felt like I had only started to scratch the surface during the residency. It was a whole new way of working and collaborating that really excited and inspired me. Bringing it online and experiencing the restrictions and technical problems really instigated a more resourceful approach from everyone and demonstrated that it was completely possible to collaborate creatively in that way. I'm so looking forward to finally meeting up with the group when we can. I asked each of the RECYCLE participants to make a small sculpture, bead or charm from their paper pulps and save all their used fix solution so that when we eventually re-group in person we can construct a piece of jewellery together connected by copper plated with the silver recovered from all our used fix baths.
It felt like a fitting way to document our work. Based on and incorporating all of our input, plus the silver collected from each of our processes, and also referencing research that was started into the universal connector, the circuit made to recover the silver and indeed our own connection through the project. I hope one day we can connect again in the not too distant future. |
AuthorCharlotte E Padgham is an experimental and sustainable artist and jewellery design-maker using the imperfect, discarded and intervention of the self as inspiration, tool, and material. Circular economy principles are an integral part of her process. Materials and waste are reused, reworked and recycled within and across her art and jewellery practices. Archives
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