Sondy Kai is our featured artist in November-December at the YSAC Community Gallery. Her show -- "Reincarnated" -- highlights Kai's use of original "guerilla" crochet techniques coupled with specially crafted tools to create her "creatures" composed of post-consumer plastic trash. The result is singular, and environmentally-friendly. Join us in appreciating "green" art!
Back in 2009, on a very normal day, I saw a particularly colorful chip bag with foil interior and thought to myself -- "I think I’ll save a few of these and make something….ya know….shiny and glitzy." It’s now 2012, and hundreds of foil and non-foil bags later, I’ve become sequestered in plastic trash in a crazy, unplanned sort of way. What was once curious innocence is now a seductive traipsing into the unknown. At this point my average speed in creating a piece includes several runs into smashing failures before I can actually get a grip on all the various properties in motion.
Some plastics are intact but out-gasing, some have started decomposing in sunlight, and some sit there looking harmless in a teasing sort of way, but you can smell them doing something. What was I thinking?
The worst part is I can no longer drive anywhere without scoping trash, which is really worse than texting. So, I’ve just assigned extra angels to my car. Daily my head swims with plastic inventory in all shades of color and weight….as well as mental maps where all the discarded plastic hoards are waiting by the roadside to be re-purposed. This is an arduous task. What was I thinking?