5. Peeled cups

4. Fake Paper Cup

This is a 'paper' cup that I picked up in the lane near to where I live, was intrigued to discover on handling that although 'looking' exactly like a paper cup, the print, colour and general 'look' imitated it exactly, it was in fact made of plastic. What price authenticity Starbucks?

3. Cut paper cup

This was a cup that I cut in a similar way but as I have to 'undo' the rims, there is a small 'edge' of thicker paper that I decided to cut in different directions to see if I could mimic a tree, bearing in mind the origins of this material. I ended up with a small copse of three 'trees' which I then placed around the edge of the base of the cup, slotting the ends into the gap, thereby removing any need for glue or means of attachment.

I like the inference of a 'windswept' landscape although this may be a little fanciful on my part. 

The trees I think look fragile and in need of protection, succumbing to forces beyond their control.

Method: cutting

Tools: scissors

Materials: one paper cup

2. Cut cups

One of the first things I did to 'investigate' these cups was to cut them, with scissors, by hand, starting at the rim and finishing at the base and then winding the resulting 'yarn' around the base as if to make a ball of yarn, full of hope and potential for further making but in a sad way a kind of unrealisable potentiality; the 'yarn' is too brittle cut like this to be knitted. Thus this work has a finality, a closure; it makes a statement, perhaps only I am aware of this? Could it be woven, in order to make it stronger? What form would this make? I am reluctant to cut something that I have spent time and trouble to cut as finely as possible without breaking by cutting too finely or the scissors slipping.What would be the point, the purpose? To twist or ply is not possible either; in cutting this 'paper' I have discovered there are two layers, one of plastic, they come apart slightly at the cut edge, so the 'paper' is backed with plastic, which I discover is polyethylene, this needs further research to discover more information about this material. So... These two materials do not 'sit' nicely together, I know they would crack and break and be difficult to handle. However these 'balls' are, I feel, an interesting way to 'subvert' the single use product that it was. I have used my maker's 'sensibility' and sensitivity to produce an alternative way for this used paper cup to exist in the world. It is pleasing to hold one in the palm of your hand, to feel it and 'weigh' it. After all, 'the weight remains the same' but the way in which it faces, and interacts with, the world is completely different. It exists in a different 'format', it has been re-arranged to make an object unidentifiable from its previous 'existence'.

What is the purpose of this re-forming of a paper cup: the title of an essay I have recently read 'The Transfiguration of the Commonplace' by Danto springs to mind.

Method: cutting

Tools: scissors 

Materials: various found paper cups,knitting needles

I enjoy how these cups 'feel'; their stiffness and the 'sound' they make when touched and held is enticing to me. I am aware of the sound they make when tapped onto a hard surface and also when being cut with scissors there is, I am sure, a slight 'echo' or amplification inside the cup reflecting the sound of the scissors cutting through the plastic/paper which gives this activity a kind of resonance making it strangely fulfilling. The cups seem to lose some of this sense of materiality for me when they are filled with a liquid, they become softer and the 'acoustic' is different. It seems deadened.

1. Paper cup

The humble paper cup, used just once and discarded. But is it so humble? What secrets does this cup conceal? What can it possibly reveal?What are its origins? Where did it come from? Who made it? Truth to tell no-one really cares. These cups are used once and discarded in their billions every year, a figure which is escalating and which shows no sign of abating.

But why has it been discarded? Who decides which materials we value and keep, even by 'recycling', a process the value of which has been often questioned and which is not suitable for these products.

I am fascinated by these materials and how our cultural sensibilities have become inured to certain products; thus they become an accessory to fast, so-called 'post-consumer' lifestyles. (Inure; to accustom (some-one) to something, especially something unpleasant. To harden, toughen, season, temper, condition, accustom, habituate, familiarise, acclimatise, adjust, attune, desensitise, dehumanise, brutalise)

A symbol of status as opposed to status symbol. We are too busy to sit and drink at a table from a 'proper' cup, a ceramic cup, a hard cup, a washable cup, a re-usable cup, until it breaks or cracks, as nothing lasts forever.

Paper cup from college canteen at Bath School of Art and Design, Sion Hill, Bath 2012