The Daily Habit – coffee shop debris – 16″ x 18″ x 5″ – 2014 – $425.
This piece is made primarily with debris from a couple of local coffee shops. The path in the center is made with used coffee stir sticks, stained with coffee, tea, and cocoa. Contours on either side are built up with corrugated cardboard, and covered with papier mache’ made of newspapers, lightly used paper napkins, coffee chaff (a by-product of coffee roasting,) and tea leaves, with a small amount of caulk left over from a home tiling project, and some wood glue. Both are sealed with watered-down wood glue. Frame is an old drawer, sanded and stained with a mixture of coffee, black tea, and cocoa, and sealed with beeswax and olive oil.Working with these materials was fun, although I had some difficulties getting the texture of the papier mache right; newspaper is not very high-quality paper. I especially enjoyed making the herringbone pattern path, an ancient brick pattern I found in an article about archeological treasures of Afghanistan. The photo doesn’t show it well, since you can’t see the sides, but the ratty old drawer I started with became a beautiful object with sanding and many coats of coffe, tea, and cocoa stain, and a hand-rubbed finish.