sustainable project

My relation to energy

This week our class was assigned two assignments, one was to create a project reflecting my relationship and/or thoughts regarding energy and sustainability. Second, to create a log of of the waste I produce through out the week and come up with some possible solutions to reduce it. This was a good project, it catapulted me into a mode of regular awareness, reflection and resolution. You can find that post here.

My project was one that came in a flash, one of those ideas that didn’t come out of much examination of beliefs or contemplation of moral ideals. I have been taking these ideas more and more, I have lately been embracing these intuitive interests, for I have concluded that I have put myself through many a head ache and cyclical process that tends to bring me back to these initial kernels from once I started. I simply am choosing to bring them into relevance a lot sooner nowadays.

So this is a very simple narrative. I accidentally knocked a mug off my window sill about a week ago, and when I finally got to sweeping it up this week, I felt like I wanted to save it and use the parts for another project. I often get this feeling, but rarely act on it, also, there is always a draw to me from slick primary colored pieces of material, such as this bright red slick ceramic mug. It occurred to me that to patch it back together using glue would be inelegant and clumsy. Instead, I instantly thought of embedding the pieces into wool felt. Previously I had made some jewelry this way from a broken ring I wanted to hang onto. Hanging onto an object by preserving it in my favorite medium is always a good idea.

Broken mug

Wet wool wrapped around mug

Doing my best to form the wool around while keeping the pieces all together

Close-up of broken pieces hanging on for dear life

There is no photo of the final product, because unfortunately this project failed. The pieces could not be held together properly while the wool needed to be shrunk around the object. I would need to fix the pieces of the mug together prior to felting around it, which would then take the point of the project away entirely. Or, I think I could pre-felt a mug without the pieces, and then cut into that wool mug and embed the pieces one by one.
Or, maybe I will turn these pieces into red jewels embedded into newly designed wool jewelry… hmmmm…