Why Rizla’s ?
15 February – 2023
The cigarette ash disposal unit outside a pub on Perth Road, Dundee was broken into.
Soon after I realised people were also raiding the top of street bins to get the last dregs of tobacco. It highlighted that people are too broke to buy a cigarette.
I bought a pack of Rizla and started sketching 5 a day. ( apple, orange) on this 4cm high, thin paper.
I was sketching roughly and also rolling them empty for no good reason. It was a novelty, a daily task but there was something I couldn’t let go of.
The paper and tobacco are bad for you, so thin and loaded with history. Yet it is a beautiful ribbing texture.
I then created a few small Rizla drawings of John Muir Country Park. ( see the foot of this post or visit the portfolio )
(Earlier in May 2022 I had also recorded video footage of the damage after storm Arwen in John Muir Country Park and used this for a peer workshop.
The destroyed tree line of this area has become a fixation. I also used the same image for digital burning and lighting on veneers in May 2023.
The lasting damage is still evident when I walk there now. )
The Rizla and tobacco are so damaging and the damage is also visible from the destructive storm.
March 2023: London
I stopped at the paper-making display at the Van De Velde exhibition in Greenwich Maritime Museum. The ribbing on the paper (embossed from the drying trays ) was similar to Rizla.
I sketched the Greenwich, Thames reflection while I was there and later made a response at home on the Rizla paper.
So the Greenwich scenes are ‘after Van Der Velde’.
I am still working on this series.
A bit of history:
Rizla goes back to Chinese paper making. ‘Riz’ being the French word for rice and ‘La+’ as an abbreviation of Lacroix.
Croix translates as ‘the cross’ (hence the plus sign + on the packaging)
So it’s the rice of the cross.
Though much of the history of earliest production is Spanish. The first 10 trademarks ever in Spain were for Rizla!
They are not impractical, so conveniently small to carry around and quite tough.
Some personal history:
My dad used to smoke roll-ups with no filter.
Incidentally, I have never smoked.
My Rizlas were bought or gifted.
