In the initial stages of ‘lockdown’ I felt a great deal of purpose – I was staying at home for a reason, resources were limited and there was a sense of ‘make do and mend’. The shelves in the grocery stores were empty, there was no chance of getting a delivery slot from the retailers and so nothing was taken for granted – if we had food in, we used it all, we made delicious home made recipes and were grateful that we were safe, fed and watered. We supported the local businesses and eventually had a weekly box of vegetables delivered to us from a local independent cafe that could no longer open – we could not choose what was in the box and inevitably ended up with items that we would not normally eat, in our case, avacados and aubergines. Despite recipe suggestions involving salt, baking and crushing, these food items were neglected and eventually went past their best. Of the mind that nothing should be wasted, I soon decided to turn these into art.
I let the aubergines rot and then covered them in modroc, as they further disintegrated this caused the modroc to sag and slump into a new form and for the rotten aubergine to ooze through the pores of the modroc.
As for the avacados, I had initially thought that I would use the skins to produce natural fabric dye, but in the end just left them to dry in the sun – this resulted in a beautiful leathered texture and gorgeous tones. I have not decided what to do with my rotten produce just yet – for now I love the way they look in the photographs and they are waiting for when inspiration strikes!