2025
I am still aiming to be as environmentally sustainable as possible in the production of my creative work, collecting my materials from the local area:
- I make pieces from seaweed, moulded, corded or stitched.
- I make paper from local plants.
- I make paint and ink from rocks and plants.
- And my new work over the past year has been to repurpose old works on paper to make moulded bowls as well as new 2D images.
Bowls – recycled paper, diameter 40cm
Recycled paper & kelp bowls
Low Tide 81x50cm mixed media (recycled)
Flow 96x74cm mixed media (recycled)
Locally sourced pigment on A5 onion-skin papers
Assorted kelp bowls
2024
My current practice is aiming to create work entirely from environmentally sustainable materials virtually all collected within walking distance of where I live and work on the Solway coast. This consolidates the various environmental strands in my work from the past 10 years or so.
Seaweed
Moulded kelp pot 30Wx30Wx28Hcm 2024
Oarweed and linen thread 54x95cm 2023
The kelps are a totally wild, uncultivated and plentiful resource, growing in the sub-littoral zone of the shore – below the tideline. It is only uncovered at extreme low tides, which happen once every full-moon. Round this part of the Solway Firth, low spring tides occur around 7am and 7pm. Clambering down steep cliffs and out across seaweed-strewn rocks in the dark is not a very safe or practical activity, so I need to collect all my resources over the summer months. I treat these restrictions with respect on several levels.
Once collected, if left wet, it rots; if dried it becomes brittle and fragile. There are no manuals or traditions (that I can find) about how to make reasonably durable artworks from seaweed. I found this refreshing – I was having to make my own way.
Oarweed and linen thread 40x100cm 2023
Oarweed corded and netted 46x122cm 2023
Seaweed – the laminaria zone 35x29x3cm 2023
Seaweed – the laminaria zone is a one-off artist’s book with each page showing different (flat) ways I have used the different seaweeds. Sample pages follow:
Book page: stitched oarweed
Book page: stitched oarweed
Book page: dulse
Plant papers and colours
I am making a range of papers from a variety of plant materials, both foraged and grown in my garden. I am making inks from the plant materials and collecting rocks and clays to grind into pigments for paints.
A5 plant papers and natural pigments
A5 plant papers and natural pigments
I am trying as far as possible to source additives such as size for the papers and binders for the inks and paints from locally available sustainable materials, avoiding any chemicals and processes that are damaging to the environment.
Primarily I am trying to make meaningfully creative artworks from all these sources, always challenging myself to make something new and contemporary from what may be ancient techniques. And always inspired at root by the local environment of sea and land, plants and rocks, hills and waves.
I also want to own up to the high ‘cost’ of heat and water, let alone time, to process all these materials. Even ecologically sustainable art does not come for free!
Linda Mallett 