30th September, 2011

breadtag world

These are certainly one of the most bizarre pieces of art I have yet to encounter. Some people create art with clay, canvas or paintbrushes, but artist Beth Taylor uses a multicolor cascade of bread tags. She’s created a solar system out of these pieces for her exhibition, Breadtag World. She has used over 12,000 tags to create amazing worlds and astronomical pieces.

She has collected the bread tags from all over Australia, from WA, ACT, NSW, SA and Victoria to New Zealand, Hong Kong, USA and Canada. USA has lovely orange and pink ones that she is unable to get in Australia. Green ones are found on vegies in NSW, while a lady from WA has been sending her ‘whopper’ tags from potato bags for years. The easiest colors to get (in order) are: white, blue, red, yellow, brown, green, orange and pink. They are all sourced from Australia.

Beth works for a government agency, which consists of 200 employees, in Canberra. They have all been donating their tags to the cause.

Her friend’s husband works for a Spots and Rec. camp for the Department of Education and he gets all the kids to save the tags for her too. She has accumulated several hundred from this source alone.

All here family and friends get behind her and help her collect them. At one time, every second day she would find some in her letterbox or on her doorstep.

To make the sculptures, Jo painted styrofoam balls where the different colors would go, then clipped the formed units together and melted them in the oven. If she was missing an exact colour, she painted each tag individually with plastics dye. She then proceeded to attach the melted tags into place with a hot glue gun.

Jo stated to collect the tags in 2003 and has been making things out of them since 2006. She is (possibly) the world’s only Breadtag artist. Jo has said that she finds making the sculptures really “meditative” and that they “fit together so beautifully. It’s just like re-scaling a fish, or putting a jigsaw puzzle together”.

Other creations have included magnets, brooches, necklaces and earrings. She has also made cards and CD covers. Jo and her husband have a family crest and there is a breadtag on that. She also used them to make her wedding invitations and used them as bonbonniere's.

The Breadtag world exhibition finished on the 20th July, 2011 with not future dates set.

Jo says that she already knows what her next project is .. but she is keeping it a secret!