Conversation with Repurposer Collective members. Part 3

🌊 Dive into Currents of Connection: A Tapestry of Art, Water, and Repurposed Magic! 🌊

In this episode of Salvage, we’re wrapping up our three-part series on Currents of Connection — a breathtaking 32-foot collaborative artwork by the Repurposer Collective. Each artist took a piece of the puzzle, weaving ocean current maps with photos of clouds and waves, all crafted from repurposed materials. The result? A fluid, multidisciplinary masterpiece that celebrates water as the ultimate connector.

From Michelle’s hand-stitched layers to Judie’s glow-in-the-dark thread experiments, Maureen’s plastic-sewing adventures, and Patty’s crumpled-paper mountains, every block tells a story. Hear how these artists tackled challenges, embraced limitations, and discovered new techniques — all while creating something far greater than the sum of its parts.

Tune in to hear their laughter, insights, and the sheer joy of seeing their individual visions flow together into a stunning, cohesive whole. Whether you’re an artist, an eco-warrior, or just a lover of creativity, this episode will leave you inspired — and maybe even itching to join the next collaborative project!

🎧 Listen now and ride the wave of repurposed artistry!

Michelle Sirois-Silver https://www.michellesirois-silver.com/ 

Judie Payne

Maureen Farmer https://www.maureenfarmerfiberart.com/ 

Patty Gates https://www.instagram.com/gates.patty/ 

Teresa Stoller https://www.instagram.com/beachdreamsstudio/ 

Nancy Turbitt https://nancyturbitt.com/ 

Mindy Kombert https://www.plasticandpearls.com/ 

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist. 

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/ 

Transcript

Welcome to Salvage, a podcast for conversations with artists about the repurposed materials they use in their art practice.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Salvage. This is our third in a three part series talking about our a collaborative exhibit called Current of Connection. Let me remind you what Currents of Connection is. It's a collaborative, multidisciplinary artwork and exhibit by the members of Repurposer Collective. Each member has created a section in their own style and technique, entirely from repurposed materials, to create a 32ft long, multi-disciplinary artwork that layers ocean current maps with personal photographs of clouds and waves.

(Those were my personal photographs) weaving science and lived experience into a single, fluid tapestry, and celebrates water as our ultimate connector.

Please enjoy our conversations. I asked each member fairly similar questions. And I think you'd be delighted to see what their answers are or how similar they were and how different they were at the same time.

Please welcome Michelle Sirois Silver.

thank you, Michelle, so much for agreeing to chat with me. So it's a pleasure to talk with you, Natalya. Yeah.

what convinced you to join our a collaborative project?

Well, I mean, I, I love the idea of collaboration, for starters. And, and I think it's really powerful when a group of people come together to create something.

there's a lot of energy, I think, behind that. So I think that that's the underpinning of it. And then also, I just love the idea of it. I mean,

I don't know. I mean, how can you go wrong, right? I mean, it's like, yeah. So it's, you know, it's

yeah, it was something that I just loved.

I love the concept of it. I love being a part of something, a piece that was going to be that big and really just jumping into it. Diving into it.

When you receive my email with your block, what were your first thoughts? Do you remember?

My first thoughts were

okay. Totally love the concept. Now I've got this block, which is pretty large. It was a big piece, and, I think it was about two by four, two feet by about four feet, approximately. And, and my first thoughts were,

okay, I know, I'm just like, I'm really just one piece of, oh, you know, 30 pieces, 30 plus pieces.

how can I be like a part of it and yet still create something that was unique to myself? And, and also, you know, I mean, it was a part that didn't have a lot of definition per se. So that was going to be a challenge. And how was I going to make that dynamic? And also at the same time, bring an element into it that spoke a little bit to who I was, within this bigger project.

And what techniques did you use to construct your block?

I did hand stitching, actually, a lot of hand stitching, a lot of, appliqué and layering. Those were the two primary techniques that I use to make this work.

deceptively simple. Simple.

Yes.

Did you learn anything about yourself or about your process, techniques, whatever while creating that block.

You know, sometimes one of the things that I love about a project are what I consider to be limitations of the project. So the limitation of the project is that I'm working with,

something that I'm trying to replicate. And I, you know, it has to harmonize in some way with the bigger group.

So that was definitely a challenge.

I learned that I had to be thoughtful and mindful of the overall project.

It wasn't just about my piece that it was a collaboration with many other people, and I needed to keep that in mind. And I think that that's I think that that's an important thing. So it goes from the studio into life as well.

what do you think? How did it turn out?

you know, when I saw the images of the installed work,

kind of took my breath away. Oh, actually, yeah, it took my breath away, and there was something really empowering about it, really, to see a group of individuals come together to create something so beautiful.

Please welcome Judie Payne.

what convinced you to join the the Collaborative project? What made you say yes?

I, I think what made me say yes was knowing the community of people were so encouraging, even though you're not. Even though I'm not totally experienced, it was nice to know that there were people there that were encouraging and saying, you're going to be a part of this and be included in this. And it just gave me confidence to give it a go.

Awesome. I'm glad to hear that.

So, what techniques did you use to construct your block?

I was trying to figure out how to get some variations in color and try to make it look wavy. And I thought, well I'll try to layer this and then cut it, stitch it and cut it and see if I could do that.

And so that was I guess that would be my technique that I used was just layering and stitching and then cutting the fabric and washing it. I watched it a whole bunch of times to try to get those edges to fray. But some of that I don't know. You know, if it was packed too tightly or into the new kinds of fabrics, it didn't fray as much as I had hoped it would, but it did.

Yeah, it did fray some. Yeah. It looks wonderful. Well. Thank you. Did you learn anything while constructing it?

you know, when you have a big piece like that, I think I didn't. I think I was randomly putting, randomly stitching it, and I think I probably should have started in the center and gone out to the edge. In order to keep my layers intact and things.

I think it would have been easier if I had done that, but I just sort of stitched all over it as I was going and I think if I was going back, I would try to be more organized in the way of stitching. Got it. Well, I have to say, your stitching matched up really perfectly with the pieces next to it, which is really amazing.

Now that you tell me that you've washed it several times, like, that's

that's amazing. You did a great job. Thank you. Because I worried about that. That was the one part that I really did. I knew the inside needed to resemble what the

original was, but I knew you said it needed to really try to join.

So I did try to get those edges, but, yes, I did wash it again and again and again, trying to make it fray, more so that it held. And I'm glad to know that they did, match up.

It worked out perfectly. I think one of the pieces it was next to did have a very finished edge, so I was able to tuck yours just under, and I think the other edges just matched up. Yeah, it was just it matched up perfectly. So, even though you wash it so many times and still matched up, it was fabulous.

And it has glow in the dark thread in there too, because I was using repurpose everything and I had some thread, I think, from a project from my grandkids, so I never got to see it glow in the dark. It really did, because I think that you.

What do you think? How did it turn out?

Oh, I just I don't have words for it. I think it's truly amazing that you were able to pull something like that together from so many people with so many creative ideas and give us the,

openness to create what we would create, not tell us what exactly it had to look like.

And yet it all came together and it's beautiful. And to use the repurposed materials that people have, I think it's an amazing project, just truly amazing.

well, thank you for being a part of it.

it's just an amazing

it really is when you think about people from all over with so many different creative ideas, and yet somehow it all comes together right now, pretty great. And we've never met. We had a great leader, that's what.

I just, I think, I wish there was more things like that in, in the Midwest area where I happen to be located right now.

I think when you're close to water, like mostly y'all are, you're more aware of all of the plastic and the problems and things that are created. But here where we are, I don't think people are quite as aware, so maybe share some of that with it. Midwest, maybe put the show somewhere here, I don't know. Oh, I would love to.

Yeah. If you know of a place where I can propose it as an exhibit, let me know and I will, propose it.

You know, maybe I'll just try to look around and see. But I think it has such a message, and and I think people need to see that. I agree, I want to put it out there.

I, you know, if they can travel the country, let it travel the country, I would be happy with that.

Please welcome Maureen Farmer.

what were your first thoughts when you received your block from me?

I was pretty intimidated because I had not done any work with plastics before. I work mainly mainly in, repurposed fabrics, but I had not done plastic before, and because we were in our RV, I didn't, you know, I didn't have access to my studio with.

I have a lot of junk in my studio. So, so I had to really work with what I had, which was kind of kind of nice. Rather than have a whole plethora of stuff. And I don't have too much to choose from. So, it really forced me to save the things that we bought the packaging from, the things we bought, even though I didn't know if it was going to be the right colors because I hadn't gotten the black yet when I first started collecting things.

Yeah. So that was that was fun. That was a nice challenge.

And I was not sure I had watched a lot of your technique videos on sewing through plastics and all the different ways to go about it, so I was anxious to try that.

And what techniques did you use to construct your block? I mainly machine sewed the plastics together.

I started out with, I think it was like a Fedex.

Well, not like a an envelope that you get a package in. So I don't know what you call that material. Flexible plastic. As a background. And then I just started I traced your pattern on to tissue paper. And then I kind of tried to make templates out of it and for the different areas.

And then I just started layering on my sewing machine and free motion stitch because I do that with fabric, and it worked out pretty well. It was a little bit challenging, but it was fun. Yeah. Oh, good. It looked great. Oh, good. I'm glad because I was not sure I hadn't seen anybody else's block, of course, because we were all working at the same time, so.

Right. I had no idea I was kind of on the right path or not, you know. Was there anything that you learned while you're you were making your block that you might use in future work? Yes, I would probably, I would probably start with more layers put together to make it more stable, because I was only doing 2 or 3 layers of plastic, and it was getting kind of gummed up in my needle.

So, and I also might try, a Teflon sewing needle next time and see. Oh, interesting goes through. I haven't used one of those,

but I know for machine appliqué, if you're going through like, something that's been glued down, that doesn't stick to the glue. Oh, interesting. I've heard a lot about Teflon needles and Teflon feet, but I've never used one and I haven't had any trouble at all.

Plastic without it, so. But maybe it's worth the investment just to try it out. Yeah, I really do think more layers put together would have. Would have helped me.

We'll see. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

what do you think? How did it turn out. Oh my gosh I thought it turned out fabulous. And I was so impressed how the blocks, you know, really flowed from one to the next.

And I was really concerned about that with mine, that, that I was getting my,

the blocks of color in the right spot so that they would connect with. And when I saw the finished product and mine, mine did meet up with the blocks next to it. That was that was awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. And I just loved seeing, you know, what everybody else did because I hadn't done anything like that before.

So that was really. It was really cool. Awesome, awesome.

Would you participated in another collaborative project? Yes. Awesome. Yeah, because I'm already. The wheels are turning. Okay.

Please welcome Patty Gates.

What compelled you to participate in this collaborative project? Well, I had recently joined the Repurposer Collective and it was mentioned pretty early on in my, maybe my first, session that I joined in. And I haven't mentored too many of them because I, I do work full time, so it's hard for me to be there.

But, and I love collaborative projects like, that's one of the things I actually enjoy doing the most. So, I was right away just, interested in doing it, although I didn't immediately, feel like I was maybe out of my depth a little bit, but I think that. Okay, I think I think it did it.

So what were your first thoughts when you received your block?

Well, the first block you sent me, actually, I printed it out and I spread it out on my floor, and I thought, there is no way I'm going to have time to do this enormous block. I don't have a sewing machine. And, I know that a lot of people were using their sewing machines to do their portions, and I don't have a big space.

I have a two room apartment, which is also my office, which is also my home and my art studio. It's everything, and my only work surface is the one that my laptop here is sitting on right now. So I just didn't have a place I could even work on it. So my first thought was, oh no.

But you very graciously sent me a smaller section to work on, which was much more manageable for me and, really enjoyed it. When I got that section, I don't I what was my first thought? Oh, I have no idea. It looked like a little landscape of its own. Sort of. So, yeah. That kind of helped me visualize what I was doing a little bit.

And what techniques did you use to construct your block.

I was going to use plastic and I started out trying to gather up all of my blues and browns and discovered that I just could not get enough blue together. Even though I was taking, like, the blueberry frozen blueberry bags and cutting all of the red so I would end up with these tiny little scraps.

So then I tried fuzing them together and I still was not getting enough blue. So I thought, you know what? I keep seeing this piece of packing paper that came out of, when I, I freelance and when I work, they send me a laptop and they wrap it in a lot of brown paper, which I usually save and iron and use it for other projects.

And it was sitting there and I thought, that is exactly the right color, brown that I'm looking for. Why don't I just use what's sitting in front of my face? Yeah. So I started out with, just crumpling paper to get it soft enough to work on, so that, I started out using what they call it monogamy technique, but it's really just smashing and wrinkling and, wrinkling paper until the tensile strength of it increases a little bit.

And then you can use it just like fabric, which it works better on some papers than others. Obviously packing paper usually has some kind of coating on it. I think that made it, a little

more likely to crackle and,

and tear, but it turned out fine. And then,

I started looking around for some balloons, and I pulled out,

a paper bin.

And I had an old issue of. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the the publication, The Brooklyn Rail. Yes. So, you know, it's an arts publication and they did an, issue maybe like 2015 ish. It might have been older than that, called the Occupy Colby, and it was after the occupy movement. But Colby, which I think is a school in an art school in Maine, maybe.

Oh, had a, an environmental, an Occupy Colby environmental thing that they did. And they collaborated with the the Brooklyn Rail.

And so they had printed the entire issue on blue paper. Oh, perfect for you. Yeah. And so it turned out to be just the right color for the sky. And, and I think I used a little piece of wrapping paper or something for the dark blue that, that I found.

So that was how I started. And then I, took an old, bandana, that of my partner's, that was he had given me to put in my fabric stash because I have

100% cotton bandanas. After they've been absorbing sweat for another number of years, they just start to disintegrate. So there's not, like, a way to repair them.

So I just had it sitting there and I thought, oh, well, that'll work for the background to stabilize it. And and then I just did a lot of running stitch.

I think I did some little cross stitches for the sky. I felt like I needed some spirals to tie it in with the other pieces that were coming.

So I just did like circular running stitch in the sky. There was a lot of stitching in your piece. Yeah. Oh, lots.

Where, you know, the the crumpled, packing paper. The brown packing paper. It already kind of looked like, mountain to me because it had all those rough, bumpy edges. So I was kind of trying to produce, reproduce that, for the, for the thread I had.

My friends all know me too well, and they know I don't like them to buy me new things. I don't buy a new things for myself. And my friend had gone to, Portugal, to the Azores, actually, and she really wanted to bring me a gift. So she went to a secondhand shop and she found some old darning thread, some some doilies, and I finally had to use for that old darning thread, because exactly the same color as that brown paper.

Oh, perfect. And then for the, the water that was running through the brown paper, I actually have it.

Bathroom towel that, I had washed it once. It was dark blue. And immediately we take our clothes to a laundromat. And those big industrial machines often have, like, broken metallic parts on the inside. It had snagged. And so, no, I never used this towel.

And it's just sitting in the back of my closet, and it had threads hanging off it, and I hadn't really decided what to do with it. So I just snipped all those off and used those threads for it. Perfect. Very pleased that I finally had to. Something I could do with that. And

And the yellow. There was a weird yellow line that ran across it.

I'm not really sure what that represented. I think it might have represented like the, the atmosphere, you know, like where it changes. It was it was in the map, you know, that I. Yeah, yeah. Image of the map. So yeah, maybe just a color of

like showing the light or I have no idea what it was. But anyway, that was just a piece of, a lead thread pulled from some old yellow linen upholstery fabric.

Perfect. Yeah. So I had a lot of fun doing it. And, for me,

you know, the the process of sitting and stitching on it, and thinking about the people who made the packing paper, who packed the packing paper with the computer, who shipped my computer to me with the packing paper in it, the people who grew the cotton for that towel and, manufactured the towel.

And the people who worked on that, Occupy Colby issue of the paper and all the the people in the, you know, the printing press and the people who made the paper. You know, it's for me, like thinking about collaboration. It's you're always collaborating with the people who made your materials. Unless you're a very rare artist who goes out and digs up all of their materials.

I mean, there are some people who do that still, but let me call your own pigment or whatever, but you don't produce a lot. But there are people who do that. But I like thinking about all of the people involved in the things that I have. You know, my laptop, for example, somebody made me write the chair I'm sitting.

So, you know, I kind of was thinking about it

because it's that big picture, you know, it's the the image we were working on is really the biggest possible picture of

us. Yes. The world. And, so I was trying to think of the little picture people as well, all of us working on it together and the group, you know, of course, the repurpose or collective who I am just barely getting to know at all.

So it was, it was a very enjoyable process for me. I'm so glad. And I love how thoughtfully you've approached it.

And I didn't know that until you started telling me about it. So that's I think that's wonderful because it it was, it was such a

global, shall we say, image. Yes. But to work on something like that and think about the little people is really it's really wonderful.

Yeah. I mean that's who I mean. And the fishes to that are here. Let's see. We're here for. Exactly, exactly.

it's remarkable how well everything pieced together, coming from all these different angles. And, you know, it's, you know, you're working with the grid so you're hoping that it'll all fit together. But we all these different materials and methods. And I was really impressed, in the images that I saw of how well it coheres, you know,

Hey, just taking a short little break here to let you know that this episode was brought to you by the Repurposer Collective. You can learn more about us at Repurposer collective.com, and you should join us. Our doors are open.

Please welcome Teresa Stoller.

What persuaded you to agree to participate in a collaborative project of this scope?

In this when you brought it to our attention, I think the first thing, without even thinking about it that popped into my head was it's going to be big, bold and beautiful, and it's a message that needs to be heard.

And what did you think when you received your block from me first?

it was so cool. I mean, I just because I was trying to picture the whole, the whole thing, but at the same time, I was a little bit nervous because I, you know, I was like, what if I don't use the right color?

What if I don't know? But the part about it just being water, I mean, I live on a beach and water is very important to me. And, I struggle a lot all the time here with,

making sure that, you know, trash is not on the beach, making sure things are picked up, things like that. It's I think that importance in my inside me made that message important as far as getting it out in the art.

I had a bunch of Kroger grocery bags, which are blue, and Publix, which is another grocery store here, which are kind of gray and tan looking and layering them just seemed to work really well. And what techniques did you use

when you were layering those bags and you stitched them right. I did, I quilted them because I primarily work in scrap fabrics.

And I treated it pretty much just like I would that I doubled a lot of things. For sturdiness I would fold the bags over scrunched up pieces to give it a sort of a ripple water effect. And then when I did the stitching, I was aware of wave lines running horizontally across the piece.

do you use a longarm machine or do you use a regular sewing machine? I do have a long arm. I did not put that on the longarm. I wanted to be up close to it and thinking about what I was doing. So I used the domestic machine and just went

back and forth, back and forth.

And it was very calming just to think of it as the sea

and stitching as I went along.

Is there anything that you learned while creating this piece?

Even with knowing what I know from the classes I've taken from you.

There were some bags were sturdier than others, some plastics were sturdier than others, and I realized the ones that were more flimsy were the ones I sort of doubled over and made them a little more sturdy. So what that did for me, especially with my experience working with fabrics, is I could keep the stitching a little more consistent when the plastics were

as consistent as they could be in thickness across horizontally, across the piece.

Right? What I liked about it was I loved the flexibility in the plastic and sort of being able to scrunch it up and make it look wavy, in addition to adding the stitching to it. Yeah. Yeah. That's fun to do.

What did you think of the final product? It was more amazing than I imagined. I mean, when I first saw that the the things you put online and the things you emailed, I, I mean, I know my jaw dropped.

I was literally like like that was probably what would you would have caught on camera? It was just amazing. I, I, I was so and I it was a little bit overwhelming in a good way. Like my heart was filled with joy because I realized all these incredible artists took the time and the love and the care to put these beautiful pieces together.

And then you and your volunteers assembled them, and it was stunning to me. It was absolutely stunning. Good. I'm so glad.

Please welcome Nancy Turbitt.

what convinced you to join in on our collaborative project.

I like collaborative projects.

I think they're very challenging. And they give me some, sense of direction. And I like that. And I like challenges I love. It's kind of like a puzzle to me. In this case, it really was a puzzle. Yes.

So I thought that was really, really interesting.

So what did you think when you first received your block from me?

I didn't know what it was. I clearly did not know. I couldn't figure it out. So I had to look at the whole to figure out where I was in the whole scope of things. And then it kind of

went on up above here. Oh, I think it's mainly the flotsam from water jets in the ocean. So I really just couldn't see it at first.

And then I got it.

what techniques did you use to construct your piece?

I tried following how I usually go, but I was using plastics, and I'm just experimenting with plastics. And I realized in a big way, I can't do this the way I usually do because I use an iron and you put an iron on plastic, you get a big mess.

So I had to rethink how I was going to go about doing it. And so I used more glue okay. To glue down the plastics first I started off, as I usually do with, the, the sandwich, the background, the batting and some sort of I think I had a just a muslin over the top of it.

And I made that first and I drew my dimensions so that I would stick to it.

Then I put the plastics with the glue and what I did to emulate the

on the foam was I thought about all the laces I had collected. I'm a yard sailor. Yeah, yeah. I, you know, I can't pass up a good bag of junk right now.

And so I have all these collections of things that I use, and in this case, I had two buckets full of lace. So I pulled the lace pieces out and started manipulating and cutting.

the plastic was dying down because of a little bit of glue. And then as I was manipulating the lace, I was stitching the lace over, holding down both the plastic and the lace, and the plastic was showing through, giving it some color.

at the very end, I needed to make that little bit at the top, which was the connection to the globe. Yes. And I put a piece of plastic on that.

I stitched it and glued it, and then I did stitching over it, through it with, some pearl cotton.

created the swirls in on the globe. Right. In fact, it was fabulous. It was so fascinating for me to see how everyone interpreted their blocks so differently,

which is kind of what I was expecting, but I kind of didn't know what to expect.

Right. It was as everyone's block, including yours, started coming in and I just. Yeah, it was it was fascinating to me.

I liked what happened with the plastic in the. So that was I. I was really excited when that happened. Oh that's great. I actually use that again. Yay. I them I think it was fun that you saw the plastic peeking through.

Yeah. Actually you know the my next question to you was going to be did you learn something while making it. And sounds like you did you made that discovery. Yeah. Yeah. And I learned one way to work with plastic. I also learned that I can't touch my iron. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm very glad that you didn't use an iron on your plastic, because not only would have been made a big mess, but it would also release all sorts of chemicals right in. We don't want that now. The biggest challenge for me in not using the iron work was to create a facing.

When you know, you're facing generally, if you've got a lot of thickness when you go to turn that facing,

it's not going to stay. It's going to roll. Yeah. So that was you know, I, I ended up using a stack of books to hold it for a little bit. And then I just had to sew it down.

And through it as well as along the edge. Yeah. It's stay put. Yeah. No, it looked amazing.

So what do you think? How do you think it turned out? I think it was really exciting to see everybody's different approach and how it really did hang together. It made such a big statement. Yeah. Of, you know, that there's a bigger statement there and that we need to actually come together as human beings to fix the problems that we have, and we all bring something to that that's different.

And we need everybody's voice. You can't just have one voice. Yeah. Everybody's voice. And through that, you're going to get something really exciting. And that's what happened.

Please welcome Mindy Kombert.

what convinced you to join this collaborative project?

I didn't need any convincing. I really didn't. It was like, part of what we do at the Repurposer Collective is work together, collectively.

And. Yeah, that's true, but we've never done a collaborative project before. Well, that's that's true. So I should say then that I would do it again. It was a good experience. Sadly, I didn't get to see it live, which I know, disappointing, but you did a good job at just presenting it, so I really got to see it from many angles anyway.

But it.

And when you received your first block from me, what did you what were your first thoughts?

Well, had to tackle it for sure.

I don't know, I didn't have any specific. Okay. Now, some people panicked, so sound like, you know, I was I was excited to do it. I had very limited time because it happened to be during a very busy time for me. So I had all my shows that I was prepping, and so I would have had to shift gears a little bit because I was so focused on jewelry because of my shows.

Right. And because I had so little time, I literally did it in a day, which, yeah, I was incredible. I had to do it in one day and I was really pleased with the outcome. Yes, it was amazing. I would have never guessed that you did it in one day. Wow. Yeah. You're a dynamo. Holy smokes. Oh, I don't know about that, but.

Yeah, so it makes me think what I might have done if I had more time to do. Okay, so hold on. I was coming to that question. But first, tell me, what what techniques did you use to construct it?

me think. Think back now what I did. First of all, I did do a full size image of it, I tiled it.

I don't know if everyone did that, but that was very helpful just to find, like, the main lines that I want to keep in there so that it would connect with, with the others. So I did that first, and then I just layered on plastic bags and what else did I use? I used some lace denim and, some denim.

Yes. Actually the first thing I did. Thank you for reminding me, that I should have looked at it before. Before I started chatting with you. I did, I took a part for that. That whole top, I took apart an old pair of jeans that I had and piece that all together. There was some holes in it that I hadn't mended, and they just worked beautifully to give them extra where I needed it.

And. Yeah, so that was the starting point. Thank you for that reminder. And then after that, I layered on, plastic and some old trims that I had. And then I put, I believe. Oh, it's amazing how you can forget what you do. I believe that I covered the entire thing with a sheer fabric. Unless I just did the bottom, I may not have covered the denim.

Yeah. You didn't cover the denim. Yeah. So I just covered wherever I had pieced the plastic. I had covered it with the sheer fabric so that I could easily stitch over it by machine and,

Yeah. And it was very,

free motion. Other than the reason for that, live tile piece was just to have those main lines to set aside from those main lines, I just sort of went with, trying to mimic water and your atmospheric image and.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you were to do it over, what? How what else would you what how else would you have worked on it? You know, I think the approach would have been pretty much the same. I just might have incorporated some hand stitching to try and do some of the texture, or some of the rather than just the main lines, some of the more the mid mid-range lines that might, you know, been in there that I somewhat ignored because I didn't have the time to really focus on them.

So I probably would have either done that by machine or used a little hand stitching, since I think so much of that. Okay. But I really again, I really was I sort of surprised myself because I'm like, how am I going to get this done? And then I was pleased with the results, even just in that day. It was a long day.

It was quite okay. But yeah, that's I would have

I mean, I didn't really think about how long it took you, but I am surprised to hear that you did it in one day. Yeah. Why would you? But because it was a pretty large block. Yours was one of the larger blocks, the project was really.

It was really great. I mean, I think you had a really good vision and I think that tell me if I'm wrong, but I think you were unclear how it was going to actually play out because I. Yeah, I was in sessions. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't imagine how because I knew how different everyone was and some peoples, some people had just recently joined, so I didn't really know their work at all.

So I wasn't sure, you know, there was no way that I could predict how it would turn out. Yeah. So actually, even though you didn't get to see it in person, but I did post, you know, I shared a lot of videos and pictures of it. So what did you think of the final piece?

I thought it I thought it turned out really, really, really well.

And again, I think that, I mean, that the colorways were very different. And I actually thought when I first saw mine amongst all the others, I felt like the denim, even though I thought it was such a good use for when and when I was doing it, really stood out as being very dark as compared to some of the other.

So if I had had imagined that, I might have gone lighter with that. But, because those main lines follow through on most people's work, it really read as a mural, which was incredible because there was such a variation of tone and technique and, yeah, but it worked. Yeah. It worked.

Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed our conversations. I hope we gave you some things to think about. Whether it's about how we need to protect the waters on this planet, or how we need to create from repurposed materials, or whether how important it is to have a community that has the same interests and goals as you. Thank you for joining us, and I hope to see you inside the Repurposer Collective.

This podcast was created, produced and edited by me, Natalya Khorover. Theme music by RC Guida. To find out more about me, go to Art by Natalya.com to find out about my community go to Repurposer collective.com and to learn with me check out all my offerings at EcoLoop.Art. Thank you for listening.