Michelle Reader Artist Blog

Finished sculpture for Cleaner Thames campaign, entitled ‘Bellyful of Plastic’.

The shadow sculpture of birds in a treetop I created for the AGAIN upcycling exhibition in Kuwait City. Waste materials were supplied by the sponsor, Alghanim Industries, and included car parts, broken furniture, coffee cups and food packaging. Other exhibits included sculptures by Robert Bradford, relief portraits by Jane Perkins and lots of upcycled artworks made by schoolchildren.

I‘ve spent the past few days cleaning up all the materials I fished out of the driftwood collectors on the Thames and picked up on Grays Beach.  Here’s a small selection.  Looking forward to getting started on the sculpture.

This week I’ve been out on the Thames with the Port of London Authority, and litter picking on Grays Beach with Thames 21.  Both outings were to collect waste material, particularly plastics, to use in the sculpture I’m making for the Cleaner Thames campaign.  On Tuesday I went out on the ‘Driftwood III’, up and down the river looking in the driftwood collectors and picking out bits of plastic to use.  As well as the obvious plastic bottles, there were lots of cigarette lighters, tennis balls, flip flops and other random objects.  On the beach this morning there was a great turn-out of volunteers and lots of litter was collected.  One of the big problems in the river is the amount of micro-plastics that are ingested by fish and other wildlife.  Looking closely there were lots of little plastic tubes from cotton buds and other tiny bits of plastic littered along the beach.

I went back to City University in London last week to give “Lady Muck” an upgrade.  She had some work done on her face, hair and hands, plus a new hat and waistcoat.  I originally created her during Green City Week in October 2013.

Project for families I'm running this summer on Walthamstow marshes.  More info: http://www.michelle-reader.co.uk/LitterBugs

Exhibition now on at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham - Dinosaur Raah! - an interactive exhibition in the Stables for the young and young-at-heart that I designed and created with several groups in Richmond and Hounslow.  Includes recycled dinosaur sculptures, a river with soft mats and fish toys, a ribcage den with dinosaur storybooks, and a dinosaur shadow puppet theatre.  Exhibition open until 31st August, check the gallery website for opening times.

I've been building a recycled sculpture of a boat with foundation students at Camberwell College of Art (University of the Arts London) this week as part of Go Green Week.  Using materials such as old furniture, a broken trolley, a filing cabinet and scrap wood collected around the University.

These are some sculptures I made with Royal Mail staff from waste materials collected from Mail Centres. This included old uniforms, labels, bags, plastic ties, bubble wrap, foam packaging and machine belts.  We had a one-day workshop at my studio, then I spent some time finishing them off.  They're now ready to head off on a tour round the Mail Centres.

I'll be posting every now and again with news of events, projects and work in progress.