lint beads
Most people clean out the dryer’s lint trap without giving it another thought, but lately I kept cleaning out the trap and finding myself fascinated with the color and texture of the lint. Why is it that no matter what color clothes you dry (with the exception of white clothes) you get grey lint? Why is the lint so soft? Could I use this lint somehow in jewelry making? These were the questions that kept coming to me as I would clean out the lint trap. This went on for about a month until one day I decided to do a little experiment and see if I could make a bead out of the lint.
I gathered together my bead making materials and set about hand forming the bead. Slowly the bead formed and I set it aside to dry then drilled holes once the beads were dried. I think the result looks like a cross between charcoal wool and industrial felt. Of the eight beads I hand formed, only two came out perfectly, which is all I need. I have plans to make earrings from these beads, hopefully with raw diamonds and sterling silver. It should be interesting.
Right now my art practice is limited to bead making until I’m able to gather more resources, but in the meantime I’m experimenting with the bead form as widely as I can. My approach to experimentation in the studio and my way of viewing my art studio as a creative laboratory was largely shaped by the artist Jaq Chartier in the book about her work called Testing: Jaq Chartier by Marquand Books, a Seattle-based publisher. I feel that my experiments have largely been successful, and even those that have not been successful, have served in helping me to refine my production standards.
Ever since I started reading about Takeshi Murakami’s exacting standards, I’ve found that the quality of my work has improved. I am striving for perfection while knowing that not only is perfection impossible but according to the standards of wabi-sabi philosophy (which shapes my own aesthetics), it’s not even desirable. But I love the tension of desiring and rejecting perfection. I feel that somewhere in the interstices of that desire and rejection is the potential for really good work.
