A few years ago I needed a new way to think about drawing and writing. Sketchbooks aren't "precious" to me, but they mean "work." If you looked through my sketchbooks you might not think this, but this is so.
Tin Bins is an all-purpose eatery in downtown Stillwater, Minnesota. It's built within an old grain elevator. It serves lovely pastries. And good hot beverages. My daughter and I started spending many early mornings there. I began to amass a stash of tall while paper "to go" cups. I would use these to water plants, as paint brush holders, that sort of thing.
One day - no, I have no memory of "why," I decided that the PAPER these cups were made of was too good to waste. Taking a scissors and trimming top and bottom I then pressed the Once-cups under a Plexiglass sheet on my work desk. Ta da! Strange partial disks ready for whatever might happen.
What happened is an on-going accidental project. Because the paper is not a rectangle, and is just a junky old cup, my brain feels more able to play with whatever I'm using to cover the surface.
Here are just a very few:
See? It's O.K. to admit to mistakes! It's O.K. to draw lines just to see what happens! Maybe to Dream a little landscape.
Another:
And another:
Yes, many hold words of personal motivation. That's peachy. I need a mild command more often than I'd like to admit. And if it comes from a flattened cup so much the better. But some are more artsy. You never know until one is finished!
There is a small box filled with these objects now. I've shown them to a few people. Some are impressed. Others - not so much. LOL.
It doesn't matter. The cups, well, not Not-cups now, have their own power and reason for existing. They have truly been re-purposed.
A small dream is to present them in an informal exhibition. I have not thought this though at all, but I know that putting the cups on view might suggest people look at common objects in an uncommon way. Or to show how one thing can turn into another thing, simply by looking at it from a different perspective.
Tea or coffee, anyone? One sketch, or two?
Fare-thee-well,
Sue
www.suerowe.com
Facebook Page: Sue-Rowe-Studios
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