Art + recycled cups + community contribution = very colorful, very interesting art exhibit that took place this past winter in New York City.
Photo ©David W. Dunlap/The New York Times
I first heard about Gweneth Leech's paper cup exhibition through one of the blogs that I read regularly and was blown away by the beauty and uniqueness of her art.
The article by New York Times writer David Dunlap entitled An Art Exhibit That's Good To The Last Drop introduces the exhibition this way:
For almost five months, one of the busiest intersections in New York City has been transformed — by the unlikely medium of 800 used paper coffee cups hung from fishing line — into an enchanted cleft in the canyons, a place of visual delight and surprising tranquillity.
Gweneth didn't drink all 800 cups of coffee herself; the community contributed to her supply and were invited to drop in and draw along with her during the exhibit. Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Gweneth sat in the display window, five days a week, for the entire five months of the exhibit, drawing and painting these little works of art.
The exhibit is over now, but you can see Gweneth's creations on her regularly-updated blog called Gweneth's Full Brew. There, you can read the story of how it all began, when Gweneth was called for jury duty and the only surface available for doodling was the paper cups her coffee was served in.
As Gweneth said in David Dunlap's article:
“Bach had fugues, Shakespeare had sonnets. I have used coffee cups.”
