Like a lot of women my age, I recently decided to give my bedroom in my parents' house a good thorough tidy through. I came across a box full of makeup, all of which I hadn't worn in months or even years, and had most definitely out of date. amongst the jumble, there were also many empty cases from various cosmetic items.
I decided to separate the actual makeup from the containers, making disposal easier. To do so, I had to scrape eye-shadow and powders out of their containers, placing them into a heap on some scrap paper. I realized this was art, and begun to manipulate the positions of the different colours:
But this wasn't just visually appealing art, this was also deeply conceptual. Women spend so much money on cosmetics annually, for a vast amount of it (I don't know the statistics, but we'll say a hell of a lot) to go out of date and/or go to waste. And makeup cannot be recycled, it just ends up on landfills destroying the environment. I begun to realise that what I was creating did somewhat resemble the shape of a landfill, thus, the term 'cosmetic landfill' came about.
But landfills are ugly things. This one is not. Perhaps that adds to the concept even more, the cosmetic landfill is taking the concept of something so hideous and wasteful, and disguising it with makeup to create something beautiful, a form of art. Isn't this what we women do everyday when we wear the stuff? We cover our faces and disguise our appearances, we create something more beautiful than what we naturally are.
The more products I added, the more my artwork altered:
And even when I removed the makeup from the page, the paper was unrecognisable from its original form:
I guess this just goes to show that whatever you do, it will still have a permenant impact on the environment.
I'd love to say there was a moral of the story, a message for others who wear makeup, but instead, I am subject to my own criticisms, I have literally created a cosmetic landfill and thus done the exact thing this blog post should be advising against. I am not environmentally friendly. And myself, and many others will continue to contribute to the damage of the environment through our use and disposal of makeup and other cosmetics.
Labels: Sewing & Art
