Timeout: The local crafters inspiring sustainability through homeware

Craft studio Chokmah explores design through an eco-friendly medium and materials leftover

To create art is to produce works that are appreciated for their beauty and form. But would you still choose to continue creating these beautiful pieces, when the production process is an ugly, wasteful one? For one artist, she decided that exercising her creativity should not come at the expense of the environment. 

That artist is Joyce Orallo, an interior design graduate from LASALLE College of the Arts. Through the many years working as a crafter, from conducting painting classes to holding polymer clay earring-making workshops, she saw that almost every medium creates a sizable amount of wastage. “During my experimentation and production, I realised I was creating so much rubbish,” says Joyce. “Like crazy a lot.” 

Photograph: Fabian Loo

Thus began her hunt for an eco-friendly alternative. Joyce’s search led her to Jesmonite, a water-based composite material. Originally intended to be used as a concrete substitute, savvy designers like Joyce are discovering this versatile medium and using it to realise their artistic expression instead. Outside of its usage as a building material, Jesmonite also works on a small-batch production scale: no volatile organic compounds mean no harmful fumes are produced, and there is no need to use a kiln, oven, or any other high-energy machinery to cure the product. 

Broken pieces aren’t wasted, either. The versatility of the product allows for what would typically end up as discarded material be re-moulded and transformed into new, one-of-a-kind, products. Joyce puts it in a more poetic way: “once broken, considered new”.  

Once broken, considered new 

Marbled plates and terrazzo planters are among some of the items that she, along with co-founder Halim Wahab, fashion out of the eco-material, and retails the unique pieces through their craft studio, Chokmah. “Each piece is made responsibly with care of the environment,” adds Joyce. 

 

Reference: https://www.timeout.com/singapore/art/the-local-crafters-inspiring-sustainability-through-homeware

Written by Kieran Tether