Using a variety of techniques and skills, members of the St Georges Basin Creative Craft Group and Nowra Quilters, applied recycled textiles to discarded fabrics, including sheets to interpret in their own distinctive styles, several of Rees’ landscape paintings. Techniques included painting, quilting, chenilling, applique, embroidery, crochet and many more.

Created by Shoalhaven City Council Waste Services, this project highlights the concern around the 1000 tonnes of textiles disposed of each year in the Shoalhaven. The St Georges Basin Creative Craft Group and Nowra Quilters have worked on interpreting a number of landscapes which are part of the Lloyd Rees exhibition.

Textiles are found in commercial and domestic waste, with waste in red-lidded bins going directly to landfill, and textiles that are put in the yellow-lidded recycling bins ending up at the Materials Recovery Facility in Bomaderry. Usually, these materials are not clean and have no value for recyclers of textiles who want a clean product.
This project reflects an alternative way of thinking, with Waste Services focussing on what can be created by recycling textiles, rather than what ends up in landfill.

The works will be on display in the Shoalhaven Arts Centre meeting room during the Lloyd Rees exhibition.