National Glass Centre

Janet Lambert, Brampton, Cumbria

"When I am out walking on the fields and fells, my eyes are drawn to round, shiny or colourful things. These finds can be relatively light or heavy, fragile or strong, enduring or ephemeral, translucent or opaque, rough or smooth, natural or synthetic, delicate or lumpen. If they are too big to fit in the small plastic bags that confine my collection, I photograph them. I record anything out of the ordinary, and anything ordinary out of place, that stirs a feeling, gleaning wisps of history.

I collect rubbish: things whose integrity as transmitters of memory and understanding carries no burden of monetary value. I seek the extraordinary in the ordinary, banal objects out of context, human histories blown away, washed downstream, thrown in the ashpit. I enjoy the colours and shapes, textures and patterns of fragmented pottery, plastic and glass. These surface finds, pocketed at intervals over the last ten years, are arranged according to their date and place of discovery, so the chronology is one of finding, rather than one of deposition. The resulting random associations allow us to see these losses and discards differently when placed in a new context, and to revalue them as indicators of memory and meaning.

The journey of these objects, from their origin as raw material to manufacture, distribution,period of use and then destruction or loss, is what fascinates me. As finder and collector I am just another agent in the repositioning of things in time and space. But the journeys end is not yet in view: whither next?"  

Janet Lambert
January 2011

'Small Finds' List of Works

Small Finds, found objects plastic gripseal bags, 2010

Photo: Courtesy of the artist