Artwork made of Jersey using thousands of old phone cards

A local artist has used over 18,000 Jersey Telecom phone cards to make the piece.

Jane De La Haye, responded to an advert posted by James Bedding on a Facebook group. 

With the commission in motion, James delivered 18,000 phone cards to Jane, who then spend three weeks sorting through them and planning the artwork.

She collaborated with Adam Mondy from Heritage Joinery to research Jersey charts for high and low points of the island. These were carved into the board - creating a 3D model of the island's topography.

Intricate models of historical and modern landmarks were made for the piece and combined with a mosaic of the collected cards. The final result is a unique representation of the island.

Jane made 3D landmarks by stacking cut-up cards

Jane De La Haye told Channel 103:

"This is thousands of phone cards cut up into tiny, tiny little bits, to make a 3D impression of Jersey.

"It took me three weeks when James first dropped of the cards to categorise them.  You could see my window slowly disappearing with all the piles!

"It was lots of cutting and tons of glue to get the end result.

"My favourite bit is the beaches and the models, I really loved making those. I could see the end result before I started, it was just getting there.

"I love the history of Jersey, I adore it and I will research into the minutest detail. Because I was making a 3D model, I was searching photos of exactly what things looked from above - it had to be exact. "

James  - whose cards were used to make the artwork - was born in Jersey and is now a keen drone photographer.

"I started collecting phone cards as a kid. I would go round all the phone boxes and collect the spare phone cards that people had left because I used to like the pictures and the series.

"I had so many of them that I really wanted to make a piece of art out of the collection.

"My idea - which I posted on Facebook - was a collage of Jersey. I had an idea of the island of Jersey made of the cards.

"The final piece probably used around 9,000 cards."

Jane added, "We still have more left over because each card had multiple colours in it, which I cut up and used - so there's more for the next project!"

This is, from what Jane could find, the only artwork in the world that uses phone cards of its kind. 

The final piece, which measures around two meters by one metre, is made entirely from JT phone cards.

It is on show at the Maritime Museum for public viewing until the 31 August.