Art is ENTWINED into my life. It represents where I live. It is made from where I live. It is part of my belief in how I live.
That is how I see SUSTAINABILITY, where your art expresses your belief in the world and the way you choose to live in it. I try to live softly and keep my environmental footprint as light as I can. This means living off the grid, shopping close to home, giving our animals a wonderful life, and CREATING my art of my earth.
Beyond a wider UNDERSTANDING of sustainable art, it was in the spirit of pure
experimentation that I started working within this sphere. While my initial intention was to make art of my heart, surprisingly (to me), my commitment to sustainability heavily INFLUENCED my art practice and became a driving need to make my art as part of a whole way of being.
Using our own fleece – both alpaca and sheep – where I saw the animals born and live a productive happy life on our property and using cotton off-cuts that were a waste product from a local business, have underpinned my development of my art PRACTICE.
While my intent is to FULFIL my own creative urge, as a sidebar thought, I would hope that my art invites others to ‘become more conscious of their impact on the environment’ and to SPARK ideas about their own creative practices – both in their approach to art and to life.
"The main idea of sustainable art is to raise public awareness towards environmental,
political and social issues through works of art. Sustainable artists seek to optimize
the use of natural resources to reduce the environmental footprint of their work as
well as encourage society to become more conscious of their impact on the
environment and future of our planet."
Arte Lusso Team, Sustainability in Art, 2020
In the exploration of COLOUR hidden within my earth, my plants, my food, I have used my natural resources to create an abundance of different hues. I started with capturing coloured and well-defined leaf shapes but have since moved onto creating my own natural inks.
These natural inks are totally absorbing! Not only do I feel sustainably smug, but I am hungry to see how I can CELEBRATE them, what textiles and media I can use with them, and what I can say about my environment from my environment.
By Cheryl Cook