Morning coffee as a concept of grounds across our waters, across our filters and maybe can spill on our garments staining more than our teeth, It is a need, a want, a must. I thought of 50 shades of coffee. How can it be sketched and designed to discover what stages of coffee can I form? Is there a way to relate it to how we socialize? Is it its own medium? Since coffee grounds can be activated in multiple ways.
- Clothing dye
- Eye mask
- Wood stain
- Cleaning agent
- Tenderizing meats
The possibilities are endless and they never stop! In this process, I made my own coffee, went to the store to ground it up and used it as it went along. I activated a sketch portion of the physical life of coffee grounds. I created an eye mask, dyed fabric, paper and receipts. I only utilized the coffee grounds I’ve used and no fresh coffee was harmed in the process.
In committing to design, I proceeded to move forward with fundamentals of “mess” where I can relate to the messy abstraction that can be created in the process. I photographed and recorded the work with a digital camera from 2003 to further see what I can capture and encapsulate in time. Create an infinite shelflife for all of the coffee grounds. Use sound to hear its recurring stages to show how an environment filled with grounded coffee can feel like.
Spoke in pictures in reaction to reading and lecture to inform scores in performance and sketches in its durability. Coffee grounds sensory capabilities. Removed from digitized sensations, with a life that ends in the compost bin or collective trash, due to our disposal LIFESTYLES. I guess to think about what can be built with coffee grounds? In architecture you can form building material from what our environment provides and if you are lead certified you’re encouraged to use discarded “green” materials using less carbon footprint and utilizing existing trash or “material”. Fundamentally it needs to be sketched, to transcend from a paper trail to its final stages.
Sketching feels like it can start with a pen and paper, but as we come to know; a sketch is a starting point, a method to test, experiment with your thought process. HOWEVER, I tend to sketch for a start and experiment with material, medium and methods two seconds after the sketch. Getting my hands familiar with the material, experiment and see what can show up through the process of my sketch. I believe in forming an idea from the experiment and sketching what it formed out. Understanding first how a material can behave.
Morning coffee is a segment of enchantment. A love affair that correlates to alertness, calmness with a hint of anxiety at the end. Thank you letters to the flatbush CO-OP, Bad therapy, Catskill bagel and the rest who I have wondered about and got coffee from in all its shapes and sizes. From a fancy rose latte to a simple ice americano. As easy as bodega coffee. I think of its history, my arabness whenever a sip of tea or coffee is on my tastebuds. I travel in time as soon as I start drinking my first cup of the day.
