last year i started working with epoxy resin, became totally fascinated by it, and started producing so many items that I was able to open up an etsy shop. my friends were hugely supportive, and a few new people even found me through that. things were going pretty steady, and then... I stopped.
those who know me already know that i'm in relatively poor health, and that of course does affect my ability to work, even on things I enjoy, like art. it certainly was a factor; my health declined recently and in April of 2022 I was diagnosed with a rare disorder called MALS. a huge part of why I stopped was because I simply got overwhelmed- I had no idea I'd have so many sales at first.
with the sales came a large amount of doubt. i live in the great lakes region and have a strong spiritual connection to lake michigan in particular. i live basically on it's shores. it's difficult for me to sand down a piece of fresh resin into dust, or to trim away excess drops into the trash, without thinking, "It's no wonder babies are born already full of microplastics these days."
Of course I'm just one person, and the amount of waste I could produce in my entire lifetime will always pale in comparison to what corporate plastics manufacturers produce in a day. But that doens't change what I'm doing: I'm making art, yes, but I'm also necessarily manufacturing plastic in order to do so, and at the end of the day, it's certainly not reducing the overall amount of plastic out there.
So i wanted to rethink the way I was using resin, as well as the way I was approaching sales (don't like Etsy). mostly i was just learning how to use it, and kind of doing a trial run on sales as well. but i ended up using resin on a regular basis to make a ton of junk which I then didn't (and still don't) know what to do with. I've had a bit of a crisis of conscience about "excess" resin- pieces that have no use or won't sell- which unfortunately comprises most of what I've made because, as mentioned, there's quite a learning curve to resin. it's a very unforgiving medium.
at first I swore off resin altogether and just took a hiatus; but resin does have it's particular applications, and i've felt inspired by it again lately. it does bother me to use it aimlessly, but I don't necessarily want to stop using it altogether. now I want to try and find a happy medium between quitting and wanton pollution. (and/or hold out for something like Mona Gems- a biodegradable resin alternative- to take off.)
as such, my resin creations have to fulfill some personal requirements; either they be purposeful (i.e. a functional item like a box or a journal, OR a commission/gift made for someone specific; something that is less likely to wind up in a landfill in 20 years than, say, a keychain, because it can continue to be used) OR they must make use of excess (for example, I collect plastic garbage off the beach to use in resin; or, I may pour smaller pieces to make use of extra mixed resin- but no more big, showy batches of skulls just to see how they look in different colors).
I have a lot of random, smaller pieces of resin (like bird skulls, moths, and game controllers) that I initially saw as keychains, but which could potentially be used in other works or made into jewelery, accessories, or useful things. Part of what I want to do is find uses/homes for these smaller, less practical bits and bobs.
for these and several other personal reasons, I'll only be selling certain, specific items and one-offs from now on, as well as pivoting to commissions. And I want to focus some more on my photography again as well. I'm too small of a creator to be pouring resin that might just hang out in my own inventory til I die, but I am more than happy to cast some resin for specific requests!
I am also desperately interested in making dice, so just... pray for me, lol. or fund my pressure pot and be the first to get some cool dice :)