Recycle, Up-cycle

Hazel is my upstairs neighbour. She’s little, old and thin and rather reminds me of my mum who died twelve years ago. In fact, they’d be about the same age, both born just before the end of World War II. Once a week or so Hazel and I have a coffee either in her flat or mine. I don’t allow smoking in my flat but I make an exception for Hazel. When I put the kettle on I dig out my mum’s green, glass ashtray from the 1970s and, with coffees in hand, I make myself comfortable while I listen to Hazel’s stories, most of which I’ve heard several times. That’s the trouble with getting old, you can only look back. But, I am very respectful of the fact that old people have lived, really lived (I’m thinking bombing and rationing) and I think I carry that respect over into material possessions too. I hate the idea of memories being lost and perhaps I place too much sentimentality onto inanimate objects but that’s what makes a possession sacred and special - the emotion we project onto it.

One of my pet projects is something that Hazel, unwittingly, helps me with. I love to make something new out of something broken or old. For example, I had a dinner set. It was a brown and white Willow Pattern set given to me when I’d left my husband with nothing more than some clothes and personal effects. Over time the last of the plates (already pretty badly chipped and cracked) had broken and rather than throw it away I decided to incorporate it into a piece of art that I had in mind. I have a passion for all things Human Rights-based and the artwork I ended up making was a fifty-eight by forty-two centimetres canvas representation of the journey of a refugee. Sky blue at the top, light brown ‘mountains’ beneath, a turquoise sea below that and finally string rows and red ribbon at the bottom are all particularly relevant to my message. In the sky is a sun made from a broken Lord’s Prayer bracelet to symbolise the faith that keeps people going, especially during traumatic times. Along the bottom of the mountains are pieces of my broken plate which serves to represent the hard journey undertaken across land, on foot. The turquoise sea is littered with sequins to sparkle like the sea in which so many have lost their lives in search of sanctuary. Finally, the string lines are the political and social ‘fences’ that are erected to make the asylum-seekers’ settlement more difficult (and being made of string it’s a reminder that if we really wanted to those fences could easily be pulled down). The red ribbon along the bottom of the picture is, of course, the red tape that causes prolonged unhappiness and suffering.

Regularly, Hazel clears out her cupboards and I have been the recipient of crockery, cookware and drinking glasses that she no longer wants and can’t carry to the charity shop. Most recently, she gave me a bundle of sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases and tablecloths. Some of it was in good condition and I kept it for my own use. The rest was either a bit too old to use or even donate. Those sheets and duvet covers I cut into sheets as bedding for my Skinny Pigs (because they’re hairless and can’t have hay as bedding).

But the real treasure was the pillow cases. You can generally tell how old material items like bedding are by the patterns and designs and some of Hazel’s pillowcases were definitely from the 1970s and 1980s. I knew that I would never use them but rather than dispose of them I wanted them for another piece of art. Taking the floral pillowcasesI cut out dozens of flowers and appliquéd them into a picture which is now hanging on my hallway wall. The thing is, it’s not just a picture to look at. Every time I walk past it the designs remind me of those popular patterns everyone seemed to have thirty or forty years ago. For me, they were halcyon days and I’m taken straight back every time I see those flowers on the wall. Not only that but Hazel wears a very distinctive perfume - the sort of scent my dad would have said that the ‘women at bingo wear’. It permeates everything in her flat. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have some weird attachment to my neighbour but the sensory effect of my floral picture feeds my sentimentality. It’s a reminder of happy times.

Being a slave to nostalgia has also infected the gifts that I make for my family. At the moment all of the girls want a blanket. Not just any blanket of course. I knit the blanket squares using offcuts from their dolly clothes or wool from their deceased grandma. Sometimes I appliqué bits of material that represent their star sign. The end results are uniquely personal because I’m never sure what I’ll have available to use. And, you know, these blankets are not professional standard by any means. My family don’t care though. They love them for what they are. My sister has grown wise to me now though. She knows full well that when I go to her house and say ‘I’ve got something for you’, it’ll probably make her cry. Like her elephant angel. She had to downsize and that meant rehoming much of her beloved elephant collection. She gave me some to store in my shed and some to throw away and some to re-home. Of course, the broken elephants were broken up a bit more and made into an angel shaped wall hanging so she didn’t get rid of as many as she thought. Yes, she cried that day.

So, when I hear Hazel’s tap-tap-te-tap-tap, tap-tap on my door and the rustle of another carrier bag of clothes, I instinctively reach for my scissors.