Ian’s Waste
In 2025 I had a new timber framed studio built at my home and, while we worked hard to make sure that the building was as sustainable as possible, it was still horrifying to see how much waste was generated and thrown into a skip. I gathered up all of the bits that I thought would be interesting to work with and am now working on a new series of pieces made out of various materials and named after the builder that headed the building of my studio.
ALIEN
The first in my series ‘Ian’s Waste’, Alien is made of dusty strips of synthetic rubber roofing sheet that I gathered up from a skip, leftover from the build of my new studio. I’ve upscaled the simple French knitting technique and knotted the pieces together into an ominous tapeworm. Alien feels like a fitting name for the work: to me it means something that’s not natural and shouldn’t be there, just like the rubbish and stuff that we’re filling up the earth with.
- Made from synthetic rubber (EPDM) roofing sheet, wood, cardboard tube, and nails.
- Process – French knitting (a simple process which uses a spool or tube with three or four nails or pegs attached at the top on the rim.)
COIL I
Part of my ongoing series, ‘Ian’s Waste’, COIL I is made of dusty strips of synthetic rubber roofing sheet that I gathered up from a skip, leftover from the build of my new studio. I’ve upscaled the simple French knitting technique and knotted the pieces together, into an ominous tapeworm-like form. It wraps itself around the discarded cardboard tube that I knitted it on, a kind of regurgitation of the poison that we have given to the Earth and that it’s trying to get rid of. This was one of my first experiments with the synthetic rubber material from which Alien came from – I wanted to make something even bigger and more impactful.
- 200 (H) x 57 (D) x 24 (W) cm
- Made from synthetic rubber (EPDM) roofing sheet, wood, cardboard tube, and nails.
- Process – French knitting (Sometimes known by several different names including spool knitting and even tomboy knitting, it is a simple process which uses a spool or tube with three or four nails or pegs attached at the top on the rim.)
COIL II
Part of my ongoing series, ‘Ian’s Waste’, COIL II is made of dusty strips of synthetic rubber roofing sheet that I gathered up from a skip, leftover from the build of my new studio. I’ve upscaled the simple French knitting technique and knotted the pieces together, into an ominous tapeworm-like form. It wraps itself around the discarded cardboard tube that I knitted it on, a kind of regurgitation of the poison that we have given to the Earth and that it’s trying to get rid of. This was one of my first experiments with the synthetic rubber material from which Alien came from – I wanted to make something even bigger and more impactful.
- 23 (H) x 80 (L) x 30 (W)cm
- Made from synthetic rubber (EPDM) roofing sheet, wood, cardboard tube, and nails.
- Process – French knitting (Sometimes known by several different names including spool knitting and even tomboy knitting, it is a simple process which uses a spool or tube with three or four nails or pegs attached at the top on the rim.)
CHANGING TIMES
The centre of this work is a metal wheel from the water tower that forms part of my house. I found it when I bought the property and have loved it and hung it on the wall for over 30 years. Now I’ve finally put it to good use, pairing it with long flax fibres in their raw, unspun state that I’ve grown and processed in my field and studio, and bits of hemp insulation left over from the build of the new studio. The resulting work is very much about the heritage of this building, what it used to be, what’s happening here now, and connecting forgotten times with the present.
- 70 (W) x 120 (H) x 15 (D) cm
- Metal and long flax fibres.
SNAKES AND LADDERS
The warp that runs up and down in this tapestry is woven from some coconut twine fibre that I was given – I love the raw texture of it, it’s quite hard to handle, it’s tough and edgy. The weft uses commercially-grown flax, and the two different textures work so well together. It’s a piece that reflects how I feel about what’s going on in the wider world at the moment: life is sometimes two steps forward and three back, and we’re in the middle of very difficult times.
- 235 (W) x 247 (H) x 13 (D)cm
- Manilla rope made from the abaca plant, flax twine and floor matting.
Forced Containment
For this piece I’ve wrapped a section of Lincolnshire-grown hemp, used as roof insulation and left over from the studio build – with wire and pulled it tight. The wire arrived wrapped around the big electrical cables that connect the batteries to our solar panels, and was going to be thrown away, but it’s malleable and easy to physically manipulate with your hands so it’s a useful material to work with.
The manmade material constraining the natural material speaks to me: about ancient, heritage fibres being used for modern purposes, very modern, textural materials coming together and working together, and about the way that they can be manipulated into sculptural forms.
- 45 (W) x 50 (H) x 60 cm (D)
- Hemp insulation and wire.
CONTAINMENT I
- 43 (W) x 120 (H) x 15cm (D)
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Hemp insulation and EPDM (synthetic rubber roofing sheet) strips.
CONTAINMENT II
- 13 (W) x 54 (H) x 17 (D) cm
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Hemp insulation and wire.
