A staple ingredient in my work is wire that I reclaim from old televisions, the older the better. I've found over a hundred different colours and hues of copper and aluminium wire. It takes me about an hour to gut a television salvaging all that I can use and about 3 days to re-create it into a hat. The first hat took me months to do and is now in the National Museums of Scotland Collection (they also have my first pair of shoes and a hatpin). Lately though, due to the rate of development in technology, I've found it harder to find the old television sets and have had to resort to buying various colours of wire! There is always a high component of re-used materials in my work - whether it is re-using charity shop finds or sweetie wrappers to get the right colour. I have become increasingly aware of how wasteful our society is becoming.
B2/20