Since my initial desire for an entry for the Repurposed show (a monumental, 3 story tall architectural sculpture welded from industrial steel waste) was completely beyond my ability and space allowances, I decided to focus on household waste - the garbage of everyday living.
Using garbage found in our mass produced, consumer orientated life seemed appropriately ironic when I began creating “The McFlower Merchant”, since it is a piece representative of a simpler, less industrialized era.
As I walked through my house and neighborhood, I began collecting various items of garbage. I wanted to highlight as much ‘true’ garbage, (not reusable or recyclable) in this piece as possible. The pervasiveness of food packaging waste - the paper and thin plastic film we come in contact with everyday, motivated me to come up with some way of using these materials in the making of art.
Tape, glue, thread and a small amount of paint are the only non-‘repurposed’ elements in this artwork.
The materials used are:
Body: old stereo cable and padded with the stuffing from a ripped teddy bear
Hat: old wire fruit basket, a laundry detergent cap wrapped in scrap fabric and plastic toilet paper packaging
Head: carved from scrap Styrofoam covered in mixed newspaper pulp and glue and then painted. Human hair from the floor of a hair salon is used for the figure's hair (my own hair, so the “grossness” factor, for me at least, is slightly minimized)
Blouse: sewn from a plastic grocery bag, scrap fabric is used for the vest
Skirt: old videotape film and scrap yarn were woven on a makeshift cardboard box loom, then sewn into a skirt.
Flowers: wire from a thrown away basket (hands are made of the same with tape wrapped around them) and McDonald’s hamburger wrappers
Buckets: toilet paper rolls wrapped in candy wrappers
Crate: popsicle sticks
Stool: plastic jar lid, found scrap wood pieces
Base: scrap cedar
The photos, unfortunately, don’t do justice to the added olfactory element of this artwork - that of the slight fried beef scent given off by the “McFlowers”.
