Creative Recycling
by Brenda Ross
When you are visiting two craftspeople who use paper, glass, wood, plastic, metal and fabric and are keen on recycling, and who also hold courses and "events" in their premises, you assume you are looking for a sizable workshop or converted building. And when you find yourself in a street of tightly packed three-storey Victorian houses in the Old Trafford area of Manchester, all looking alike and with no sign of major craft activity, you realise you have made the wrong assumption. The only outward sign of what goes on inside number 42 is a small logo of the business name, Creative Recycling (HandCrafted), hanging inside the front door. But inside, the house has more working and display space than living area, and is packed with the materials and finished goods used by Glennis Andrews and Fiona Norton in their unusual business.
For this is not just a crafts business providing a living for its owners, but one that aims to use environmentally friendly processes, share these ideas and ethics, and raise money for charities and projects that support them, as well as for anti-war and humanitarian causes. HandCrafted uses recycled materials, waste and found objects to make a variety of goods, and this has become so well known that more "waste" materials are offered than can be used. Those donating materials are sent a piece of work, such as a small picture or a few cards, to show what can be done with their "waste". But it is not unusual for bags just to be left on the doorstep, containing anything from old dress patterns to a worn lace cloth.
In Fiona's house, where the business is based, the ground floor rooms all open into one another, combining the storage and display of stock with storage of publicity material, space for the computer and (just about) a living area. The walls of the hall, staircase and landing are lined with examples of work, information sheets and cuttings, and the first floor includes a showroom and a room almost filled with an old loom, straw and raffia (explained later). The cellar houses the space and equipment for paper making, as well as storage for the leaflets, wrappings and envelopes they are given to use in the paper making, and space for other "waste materials" awaiting a use. In the early 1990s they dug out more of the area under the house (after a check with a builder) to create extra storage space. Even in the small back garden there is evidence of the business, with a box of fossils recently collected, and garden ornaments made of unwanted metal and wood pieces.
Originally set up in 1990 as a Women's Art Collective, the business has since become a Workers Art Collective as a more representative term to reflect all those involved. The signature on finished pieces of work is WAC, in recognition of the fact that while Glennis and Fiona run the business and do most of the making, they could not do it without the help and support of all those who collect or donate waste materials, help on a voluntary basis in the workings of the business and its events, attend courses, buy the products, and in one way or another sympathise with and support the thinking behind the business.
Glennis and Fiona knew one another before setting up in business thirteen years ago. Both were involved in teaching (Glennis in primary school, Fiona in adult education), and they also shared anti-nuclear views and wanted "to react publicly to the mistakes that had already occurred around uranium mining, testing and waste dumping etc". This included involvement in the 1980s with the Greenham Common Women's Peace Movement, and participation in Manchester-based activities and groups who backed this cause, including being part of the Manchester Women's Street Band. Fiona says she bought her house because the way the ground floor rooms had been opened up gave a sufficiently long floor space for making campaign banners!
It was the need to raise money for such campaigns that led to them making and selling badges and cards. They also sought ways to include issues such as disposal of waste in their teaching, and paper making became an activity with Glennis' primary school pupils, an interest picked up by Fiona too, who started paper making in a small room at the top of the house, with her son Jack.
Both women were offered promotion in their jobs, but it would have taken them away from "hands-on" teaching into management, which was not for them. Glennis decided to give up teaching, and Fiona reduced hers to a couple of days a week. Within two years they were supplying their handmade cards to over 120 outlets in England and Ireland.
From her grandfather Fiona had inherited a loom along with accompanying large quantities of straw and straw lace and his spinning wheel and industrial sewing machine (see separate panel for more about the loom and straw lace). All these now occupy a small back room on the first floor of her house, providing materials for recycling as well as inspiration and experimentation. The motifs of the straw lace were initially represented in the cards made by Glennis and Fiona. As a result people started donating old pieces of cotton lace for recycling, and Glennis and Fiona began to incorporate this lace with their handmade paper, in both cards and pictures.
They also now use their handmade paper to make miniature paper quilts, in traditional patchwork blocks, mounted as pictures. "The original patchworkers used odd bits of fabric," says Glennis. "We are using old paper so there is an empathy; we are carrying on the same process."
Making pictures meant frames were needed, so that meant taking up picture framing (using sustainable wood). "At first we were taking the glass off-cuts back to the glass factory to put in their skip," says Glennis, "because we thought they reused them. But then we found out they were paying to have the skip taken away, so we started thinking how we could recycle our off-cuts, and now we also take some of the waste from the factory to reuse."
Using up the glass led to glass fusing. In their small kiln, also in the cellar, the glass is melted to 800+ degrees, trapping in it other waste materials such as washers, wire, rusty bits of metal, bits of old jewellery - even leaves. Japanese maple trees in Glennis' garden provide small leaves that, when trapped between two pieces of glass and subjected to the kiln's heat, turn to ash but are trapped in their shapes between the glass. Like other squares of trapped materials, they are then arranged to make pictures. In a parallel design pressed maple leaves are mounted on squares of old paper or photographs.
Pendants and brooches are made using trapped copper wire (which turns red) and silver wire (which turns yellow) between the glass, and glass fusing is also used to make items such as dishes and coasters, and even games such as draughts, dominoes and noughts and crosses.
The glass pieces are now 60% of their business, with the main range of pictures selling for between £70 and £120, and smaller ones averaging £35.
The well-presented and well-lit showroom on the first floor of the house shows a variety of other ideas that Glennis and Fiona have produced - from papier mâché bowls to paper appliqué pictures in Rennie Mackintosh style, embellished with machine embroidery. Among the latest experiments are free-standing and wall-mounted "sculptures" using old pieces of wood and metal that would have been thrown away, including old window openers, hinges and wire; and also a striking pink spiralled lamp, made from the waste cartridges from the underpinner used in their picture framing.
The materials have always dictated the designs, and may be stored for some time before a use emerges. Recent experiments include reusing the plastic carriers that now abound, such as ironing pieces together to create a background, and embellishing it with machine embroidery. And on the loom is an experiment of weaving bits of plastic in with other materials, not with the intention of making a particular usable item, but so that people coming to the house can "play about with it" on the loom, and will have brought to mind the issue of the huge amount of waste we produce, which will lie in landfill sites for many years.
These visitors to the house can be those who come to help and support on a regular but casual basis, because they share the concern with environmental issues that is behind the business; or they may participate in day courses on paper making and collage; or they may attend the "house shows", when they can buy products and see what is going on, including paper making demonstrations. These events are held on occasional Friday and Sunday afternoons through the year - in spring, when new designs are highlighted; in summer, when home-made cakes made by Fiona's mother are a popular feature; and in late autumn for Christmas buying.
All these events raise money for charities: in the spring, for Amnesty International; at Christmas, for a local charity for the homeless; and in the summer for "Future Forests", which raises money to plant trees that will reabsorb the carbon dioxide produced by our lifestyle, which is said to contribute to global warming. The forests planted by Future Forests will be protected for 99 years and will have public access. Glennis and Fiona worked out their own "carbon debt" (energy used) as 70 trees-worth a year, and so aim at their event to raise the money to plant this number.
The money raised at their events comes from donations made for the refreshments and from a percentage of sales revenue. "But even if people don't buy the products," says Glennis, "they have shown a commitment by coming, and are making contact. They often come back again."
A tenth of all their sales revenue from the business is given to charities - humanitarian or environmental. For about a year after they started in business they sold in other people's houses, by party plan, raising money for all sorts of environmental, anti-war and humanitarian causes. For about six years they sold at craft events in the Royal Exchange, Manchester, but the IRA bombing of the city centre ended that; although the Royal Exchange has been rebuilt, craft stalls no longer feature.
The business has been built up mainly at large craft fairs, and most sales still come from attending about 15 of these a year. They also exhibit at the British Craft Trade Fair with their glass goods and paper quilt pictures, and in 2003 they received particularly good orders from small galleries and craft shops.
They used to work on everything together, but now Glennis has a workshop at her own house 14 miles away, and goes to Fiona's house about once a week. Some work is dictated by where things are, for example the kiln is at Fiona's house, but they don't find working apart any problem, "We look at things with one another's eyes," says Fiona. Anything new they still do together, and they spark ideas off one another. Sometimes, when each has been working on one particular craft or design for a time, they will swop over to avoid the boredom of repetition.
Fiona's son, Jack, is also involved. He made the picture frames as a part-time job while studying at university. Now he is setting up in business himself, partly in picture framing and partly following the family interest, with photographic/collage work on the theme of the "exhausted environment".
"Glennis and I are not just craftspeople, and not just working for a living, and we did not want the elitism of calling ourselves artists," says Fiona. "We are saying something with a bit of creativity. We are entertaining people but bringing issues to their notice - humanitarian and anti-war. But we have to operate as a business. We had to get an accountant, and we have been VAT registered for the last three years, when we couldn't avoid it any longer. The people who support us and donate money are putting a lot of trust in us to do what we say we will do. They understand that we have to make the decisions about the business, but we have to be accountable."
"We all have a common cause and have to trust one another," adds Glennis. "The involvement of others makes you remember why you are doing it." A bulletin is sent out two or three times a year, to keep people in touch. They have 1600 people on their mailing list.
"Some people from the Greenham Common days are still involved," says Fiona. "At the start we used to have collective meetings to discuss issues. Now we have socials and parties - we know what we all think about the issues!
"People at craft events often comment that Glennis and I are not competitive, and that we give away a lot of information about what we do. But we are concerned with the issues, and you cannot compete on that. If we were just craftspeople we probably would compete. We believe that we are presenting a creativity that everyone can tap into and we want to make the processes accessible. So we don't mind sharing our processes and designs. We want other people to recycle; we want to introduce them to the idea of something recycled being attractive, and that they can do it too."
More about loom and lace
The loom that almost fills one of the first floor rooms in Fiona's house was inherited from her maternal grandfather, Arnold Widmer, who lived in Switzerland before moving to the Isle of Man. He made this loom and several others too, often recycling odd bits of wire and wood in their making (so perhaps recycling is in the family genes). The loom is believed to be unique. There are very few old looms that have the spools attached at the back of the frame and feed the action directly. A small piece of leather and a peg provide the tension on each spool and have to be gently adjusted from time to time.
The loom is not used to produce products for HandCrafted, but is used by visitors and demonstrated at house shows, to show its potential. "When you weave you 'work' the whole loom, feeling its co-operation as you create," says Fiona.
She also inherited a collection of straw and raffia from Arnold Widner. With his daughter Anna Yates, Fiona's mother, and other members of the family he collected samples of straw lace, some well over 100 years old. Straw lace developed as an industry around a valley in north Switzerland, covering an area of 60-80 miles. Lace was made from the straw grown around the area's two main towns, Wohlen and Muri, where soil and weather conditions ensured a pliable straw. The industry developed as a response to the demand for ornaments to decorate the traditional straw hats worn at festivals in many parts of Switzerland.
The making of straw lace in the area dates from about 1750 and reached its height by the late 19th century (a parallel with the cotton industry). Households of grandparents, parents and children would make one or two types of motifs (out of hundreds of designs) as their "trade". This craftwork was carried out in the evening and in winter to supplement earnings from the land.
During the late 19th century, the introduction of machines for spinning and straw twisting, together with factory developments, coincided with increases in tourism and the interest of London and Paris fashion markets in hats, shawls and bonnets. So demand and production in the straw trade grew. By the 1920s the slump had begun and many craft workers were retraining in other weaving related industries. With the advent of permed hair in the 1940s, bonnets and hats became less desirable as accessories, and the era of straw weaving and straw lace was over.
Examples of work have been collected and preserved at the straw museum in Wohlen.
