We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mieke Lippstreu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mieke below.

Mieke, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Much of my work is meaningful to me by virtue of the material histories they carry. I derive immense joy from seeing would-be trash or otherwise overlooked materials celebrated in my pieces. It’s a throughline in my life – this desire to show the beauty in what we relegate to being worthless.

I’ve made jewelry pieces featuring butterfly wings pried from the pavement more than a decade ago, back in my home country of South Africa. I’ve made a pendant fashioned from a derelict address book I found alongside some railway tracks. And any time I get to work with vintage photographs, it’s a deeply meaningful experience.

I’m captivated by the question of what happens when all that’s left of someone is an image bearing their likeness. When their memory has faded from view or there’s no one left to remember them. How do we relate to the image of a person whose life – and the relationships that are a testament to it – have come to an end? Presenting these images in a new context is an invitation – to me and viewers of the piece – to imagine a life that has long since come to an end. In the act of relating to the image, it is offered a new beginning. The subject lives on, beyond the confines of the particulars of their story. It’s a transcendent experience.

Mieke, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been picking up odds and ends and making art with it for as long as I can remember. Art of all kinds – including performing – has always been an animating force in my life that’s helped me to relate to the world around and within me.

When I wound up working as a mental health professional in my home country of South Africa, I realized I had little interest in relating to patients in the ways dictated by the culture of the forensic psychiatric institution where I worked. I wanted to relate to the individuals and groups I worked with as dynamic, creative beings who could not be contained by the diagnostic boxes we’d put them in. I wanted to make art with them! So we started working together creatively – drawing, painting, singing, and dancing. Through our activities together, we got to see and celebrate each others’ creativity, challenging the idea that the people our society tends to discard are somehow not worth seeing and celebrating.

After a few years of working at the forensic psychiatric hospital, I came to the US to be with my partner. Neither my qualifications nor my education were recognized in the US so my career came to a halt. I took whatever jobs I could get until finally, my partner challenged me to take a risk and focus more on my art. That was around September of 2022. Since then, I’ve been channeling my energy into launching Mieliepop Creations, the banner under which I make art and facilitate workshops.

I work primarily with reclaimed materials to create collage- and assemblage pieces that range from the wearable to the wall-hangable. The throughline in my body of work is the process that shapes each piece. Since I use mostly reclaimed materials as the starting point, I allow them to direct what happens next. Approaching art-making this way forces me to work more intuitively, which is at once challenging and liberating.

Central to my work is the celebration of materials that are often overlooked. I seek to showcase the value of cast-off materials. Parallel to my artistic process is my interest in the broader process of transforming the conditions at hand. Attempting to bury that which we no longer find useful – whether in landfills, prisons, or psychiatric institutions – has failed us collectively. We must look to create with what is.

My workshops, called Backyard Paper Playdates, are spaces for practicing relating to materials and ourselves in a more playful way. My focus is on co-creating a supportive environment in which participants feel emboldened to try out a different approach to making art; an approach which I like to think of as getting out of the way of our own creativity. It’s been beautiful to see regular participants starting to work with more freedom, reclaiming their experience of making art so that it’s less stressful and more enjoyable.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The world can be a very dark place. Silliness and frivolity have long been among my strategies for surviving it all, My hope is that I can, in some small way, delight and inspire playfulness and curiosity in whomever engages with me and my work. And if people are enthralled by what they see, they’re more likely to take an interest in learning about why I do what I do. That’s led me to have many a conversation about throw-away culture and how that impacts the way we relate to both materials and one another. When a conversation ends with someone excitedly sharing an idea for how they might use something they thought was useless, I feel like my mission is on its way!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

We need to combat the culture of competition and the sense that somehow, my business will suffer if yours thrives. I’m grateful that I’m surrounded by artists who lift each other up and boost one another’s businesses. It saddens and angers me when I see artists pitted against one another because of the ways we structure opportunities for artists to show their work. We need to take care of one another, sharing resources and access to opportunities as much as we can.

As for how wider society can support us, I think it comes down to making choices that value our work. If you can afford to, buy work by local makers, instead of buying from large corporations with ethical records that are dubious at best. If you can’t afford to, share about our work. And whenever you encounter opportunities to advocate for artists and the role they play in our society, speak up.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mieliepopcreations/
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MieliepopCreations