Emmely Elgersma “concocts wonky sculptures and wobbly objects that look good enough to eat"
(Picture: Lenara Choudhury)Commuters might pore over the Evening Standard on their way home but, no matter how insightful and enthralling the journalism, most of the newspapers tend to be left behind at the end of each journey.
This is lucky for artist Emmely Elgersma, who collects the discarded newspapers from her local Tube station to turn into colourful, textured papier-mâché table lamps.
“I’ve always gone for the Evening Standard because the Metro is too thin — it doesn’t take to the glue as well as the Evening Standards do,” said the Stoke Newington-based sculptor and ceramist.
Elgersma uses one and a half papers per lamp, the bases of which are made from recycled tennis ball cans, sourced from four independent London tennis clubs.
Each batch of 10 lamps takes two weeks to create, leaving her studio looking like “a factory with a production line” as different batches dry, new cans come in and the paint goes on.
The lamps are either 20cm or 30cm tall, and Elgersma has created five colourways: lime and black, pink and sage, orange and cream, red and baby blue and pastel pink and green.
She has been making 50 lamps for a show at the Atelier100 store in Hammersmith, which opens tomorrow, 27 October.
Elgersma trained as a ceramist before moving to papier-mâché, finding it “quicker and more cost effective” to use.
Having now worked with papier-mâché for eight years, Elgersma has turned Evening Standards into different styles of lamp as well as sculptures.
The part-time football coach has also created decorative football shirts from papier-mâché , including a Raheem Sterling shirt for the men’s Euros, which was strapped to a car and hung outside a pub.
“I attempted a Guinness World Record [for the largest papier-mâché sculpture] with Evening Standards,” she says.
“I made a big pot, like a vase, but they said it was too abstract. I’m hoping to attempt to do that again.”
By repurposing materials bound for waste, Elgersma hopes to change the way left-behind newspapers are perceived.
“It’s a lot to do with looking at an object that you’d normally throw away and turning it into something that’s loved,” she says.
