There’s a great old saying that perfectly sums up local artist Ian Rolls latest project “one man’s trash, is another man’s treasure”. Ian was the artist chosen to adorn the walls of the new Household Reuse and Recycling Centre at La Collette which opened in January this year. This facility replaces the household recycling centre at Bellozanne and here Ian tells us about the process involved in creating beauty from trash.
“The process started well over a year ago when the Department for Infrastructure launched a submission and selection procedure for ideas from local artists, architects and makers to clad the building at the centre with some sort of artwork or design. And my ideas were chosen as the preferred project, which was fantastic.
Once I knew that I’d secured the project I started to collect objects, mainly small plastic toys and coloured bottle-tops, by going into primary schools to talk about the installation I had planned and asking the children to donate unwanted items. I soon had a mountain of stuff with which to clad the letters I made to spell out the message which runs the length of one side of the household reuse and recycling centre
On the other side of the building I used old tyres of different sizes to frame circular windows and strips of tyre rubber to wind around pillars supporting the porch roof.
Paint spattered recycled floorboards were used to form a cladding plinth around the whole building, expertly fitted by my working partner on this project Jonny Swift (he’s the person in the photograph with me).
A great deal of recycled items were used in the whole project, the building itself takes its shape from the steel frame saved from the demolition of the Jersey Potteries building and was clad with timber salvaged from the site too. There are also thousands of coloured plastic bottle tops which have been fixed in vertical stripes, each one had to be nailed in place by hand.
The whole effect is to make the increasingly important business of waste disposal and recycling in the island a much more pleasant and fun experience. It was great to be involved by helping to change the public perception of “rubbish” through my art.”
