WHEN WORK IS JUST A LOAD OF RUBBISH

It may be throwaway junk, but the litter of 21st-century life is the raw material for a group of artists who make a living off our wastelands.

Helen Chappel goes beachcombing with them

THERE'S plenty of doom and gloom in the figures about our polluted, throwaway society. In one week, the eco-experts tell us, the UK produces enough waste to fill Wembley Stadium. And that's a figure expected to double over the next 20 years.

Consumed with guilt about this state of affairs, we welcome anyone who can salvage something positive from it. Artists, designers and craft-makers, who pick over our rotting refuse and transform it into beautiful new creations, have never been more popular.

As we buy their funky, recycled sculptures, jewellery and furniture, we are not only supporting homegrown talent, but learning our green lessons.

It takes a special imagination to see the beauty in a pile of old drink cans, screwed-up crisp bags, kitchen foil and plastic tubes.

Joanne Tinker's eye would put a magpie to shame as she rummages through her local rubbish tips in Twickenham for secret treasures.

"There's a recycling depot for drinks cans from Heathrow airport, which is ideal," she enthuses. "The cans are a bit messy and smelly, but I wash them all out."

Using the skills she acquired on a jewellery and silversmithing course at Birmingham Polytechnic, Joanne revives these sad items as dazzling, modern chandeliers, wall sculptures and necklaces.

"I love the vivid colours of the drinks cans, especially when cut up and layered into complex patterns," she says. "I'm working on a new jewellery range using coloured foil sweet wrappers pushed inside clear plastic tubes which used to hold acupuncture needles.

"My father-in-law is a doctor and saves them for me. The results are quite dramatic necklaces and earrings which people seem to love - I can't make enough of them."

Working from her garden shed surrounded by boxes of buttons, bottle tops, corks and chocolate wrappers, Joanne lets her imagination off the leash.

"Using recycled stuff instead of expensive gold or silver means I can take a lot more risks with designs. It's getting a bit cramped in the shed, though. In the future, I'd like to open my own shop devoted to recycled art of all kinds."

Strolling along the Thames foreshore at low tide, you might spot fantasy clockmaker Hereward Gabriel.

He'll be busy collecting bits of rubbish washed up on the mud - plastic bottle tops, lumps of driftwood, beer cans, umbrella spokes.

These he fashions into elaborate sculptural timepieces straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

"Objects which have been weathered and worn smooth by the water have a lot of character," he says. "I love to see how time and nature can transform everyday things."

For his Sardine Towers clock, for example, Here-ward has stacked up a dozen old sardine tins, fitted them with useful drawers and added a little wooden cupboard and four upturned Victorian table legs. His clock hands are salvaged chip-shop forks.

Back at his Kentish Town workshop, he has transformed his Thames- shore finds into the Time and Tide clock, incorporating driftwood, medicine bottles, a lavatory ballcock and a clockface made from the metal top from a tub of Vim.

"I studied illustration at art college but felt stifled by it," he says.

"So I joined a spiritual eco-community and learned how to do practical stuff, such as mending the roof and building a bike shed.

"By the time I left, I had started to think in three dimensions and was brimming with new ideas. Now I'd like to inspire people not to be so wasteful but also to use their own trapped creativity.

"I would like to make some of my clocks even bigger and have them in public places where everyone could see them."

Some designers are taking inspiration from old junk to new levels. Deborah and Tim Sadler started out recycling used industrial objects and turning them into pieces of furniture.

"One of my early pieces was a table made from a wooden cable reel," says Deborah, who studied sculpture at Central St Martin's School of Art.

"I left on all the industrial stencilled lettering. I liked it so much, though, I couldn't bear to sell it." Battered old oil drums were cleaned out, painted and restyled into natty little tables.

"But we soon realised that used drums were too dirty or damaged for us to manufacture in any quantity," she explains. "So although my early work was very useful for trying out ideas, we now use oil drums fresh from the factory. We've moved from making one-off craft pieces to manufacturing a range of products."

Deborah and Tim are part of a new craft-design movement whose members are determined to be more businesslike about their work.

The Sadlers' chic range of blanket chests, tables on wheels and mobile kitchen work stations (all made from industrial oil drums) can be seen on their website and ordered from their East London studio or their stand at trendy interior design shows.

"People are nice enough to say our furniture is sexy and cool," says Tim, who handles business and PR as well as sharing in the design process.

"Perhaps it appeals to them because it seems to humanise our industrial past.

But we try not to theorise too much."

Equally sophisticated and businesslike is glass and ceramics designer Jhan Stanley. You'd never know it, though, to see her rooting about in the bins outside fast-food shops or swooping on rubbish people have strewn over the pavement.

"People don't realise what beautifully designed objects they are throwing away," she says. "I can't walk down the street without wanting to pick it all up."

Once safe inside her studio in Shoreditch, these unsavoury items are used to create plaster moulds from which Jhan extracts the most elegant and luxurious tableware in bone china and lead crystal. "I want to create something beautiful in very classic, traditional materials from these rubbishy sources.

I like my work to be quirky and urban and contain a sense of humour."

Her customers are delighted by it, too - snapping up her crumpled vending machine cups in fine crystal, her bone china jugs based on fizzy pop cartons from the cinema, ceramic versions of takeaway food boxes and paper plates, and vast platters created from wired safety glass used in bus shelters.

Her work sells in the Craft Council shops, exhibitions like 100% Design, exclusive galleries and department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman in New York.

"I'm looking to license my designs and see them in many more retail outlets.

It's very hard to find the time to run the business side - marketing, press, bookkeeping - and keep the creative ideas flowing too," says Jhan.

"But I'd advise any young designer to go full steam ahead. You can't beat doing your own thing."

WHERE THERE'S MUCK THERE'S BRASS

Traditional work in rubbish - reusing or disposing of it - is also in the spotlight now the government has set new environmental targets (eg, to recycle 25 per cent of household waste by 2005).

* Scrap metal merchants have been thriving since Victorian times; 50 per cent of our aluminium, lead, copper and zinc is now recycled.

For careers advice, contact British Secondary Metals Association, 21 Sandford Court, Lichfield, Staffs WS13 6QA. Tel: 01543 255450 Web: www.bsma.org.uk * Waste paper merchants recycle 40 per cent of waste paper in the UK. For careers info, contact British Recovered Paper Association, Papermakers House, Rivenhall Road, Swindon SN5 7BD. Tel: 01606 854903 Web: www.recycledpaper.org.uk * For help to find relevant professional organisations, training courses and background info on the industry, contact Institute of Waste Management, 9 Saxon Court, St Peter's Garden, Northants NN1 1SX. Tel: 01604 620426 Web: www.iwm.co.uk.

Copyright 2001
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