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I have been wanting to make a flower arrangement using fishing floats for some time. I was struck by how these particularly coloured floats resembled tulips after I found one on the beach with a stick protruding out of it like a stem. I filed it away in my mind as a potential future project. When the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust team contacted me about creating something to replace their hanging plants, I remembered the ‘tulip’ floats.
In the original mock-up of the piece, I didn’t include the green ‘leaves’. However, once I completed the ‘flowers’, it was apparent that the leaves would be a good addition. The problem then was to find a piece of green plastic in my collection of marine debris that would work. I dug into my pile of random marine plastic objects looking for anything green. I found a number of pieces (old lawn chair, barrel, tote lid) but nothing that was really a great fit. I almost gave up when I spied a beat-up kid’s sled at the bottom of the pile. The two-toned chartreuse green was the perfect colour and the sled even had curves that suggested the shape of tulip leaves. Once again, the tide delivers!
After assembling the ‘tulips’ and ‘flower baskets’, I cut the sled up into leaf shapes and heated and bent them to resemble tulip leaves. I was relieved to discover that the sled was just big enough to fashion enough leaves for each flower. Having just enough material for the job is always a great sign from the marine debris gods.
After assembling the ‘flowers’ and adding the ‘leaves’, I thought the baskets still needed a bit more so I searched around for something to make some small ‘flowers’. I experimented with a lot of different materials until I tried the mesh oyster bag. The exposed end of the bag reminded me of a small flower so I cut the bag into 3” pieces and mimicked that look. Once again, I had just enough material to complete the piece. The gods were definitely smiling.