My French son-in-law can be so much fun. When I go over to Paris we both go out and glean stuff off the streets. We do it on foot as we don’t have a car. Usually we leave my daughter at home as she is not as keen as us, to collect what we like. Once we are back at the apartment with our stash, I sift through it and set aside a little to play with and then I send the rest back home to Australia.

I haven’t been to France for over a year now and today I received a mysterious brown box in the post from Paris.I wasn’t expecting anything so, I was very excited to open it.

I eagerly opened the box and inside was a gorgeous pile of stuff. When I say stuff, I don’t mean glamorous things from Paris, like Loreal , Chanel or Louis Vuitton hand bags. I mean, the box was a treasure trove of French ‘detritus” litter, junk, rubbish. Stuff that usually goes into landfill, stuff gleaned from the streets of Paris. Food packaging, pretty boxes, champagne bottle tops, clothing tags, fabric scraps, glow in the dark bits of plastic, advertising and all kind of paper ephemera plus a replenish supply of baguette bags for my handmade books ….

All this wonderful stuff I reclaim and use in my collage and sculpture.

Merci, Merci , Merci !  Davidx

View my video on “Gleaning Paris for Art Materials”