Unlike cloth bags, plastic shopping bags have a very limited life span and re-use value. Consumption Device is made of machine-stitched plastic bag panels that are stitched into a bag using hand-spun thread made of the same bags. Although this is a highly designed bag, it is very frail and holds no real use value.

Consumption Mill is a series of hand-stitched windmill blocks back lit with a light box. The windmill pattern references renewable energy sources and each windmill block is made from recycled plastic shopping bags. The piece is embodies the conflict I experience in my concern with the need to conserve and my cultural training to consume.

Buying and consuming is embedded into the fabric of our every day lives. Each bag is discarded evidence of a shopping trip, ordinary, mundane and insignificant rubbish. Cumulatively the bags document our consumptive behavior.

I started collecting these discarded bags from my own consumption outings and slowly began to ask those around me to contribute as well. Eventually I began to see patterns and relationships between the mounds of bags. I cut out bits and piece of the bags that were interesting to me. With those bits I created little vignettes that grew into each of the Consumption Portraits in the series.

If the portrait was to belong to the series, I decided that they each needed to be assembled with thread. This self-imposed hurdle (plastic bags are not very forgiving to needle punctures) essentially forced me to treat former waste as something precious and of value. In addition each portrait had one additional rule: all elements must be unified with a similar line quality or color palette. The result is a series of quirky dada-esque narratives of consumptive behavior.