I Am A Crazy Person

Oh god. What have I done? This bottle cap thing is out of control. But I am loving it. It is insane, my Bottle Cap Bar project, and yet I so have to do it.

So, I have all of these thousands of bottle caps that have come to me in the past few weeks and right now I am in the process of sorting them. It's horrible. But I know that it will make for a much better project if I am able to make designs on the walls of the bar instead of just having them randomly placed. Besides it just wouldn't be me if I didn't attack this project in a time-consuming, anal-retentive kind of way.

But I am not stupid. I have been asking for help. Yesterday, four suckers, er I mean friends, came over to my house to help me sort. I bribed them with pizza and beer. We worked for about four hours and it was pretty exhausting. But we made a good dent. Here are some photos from the afternoon.

All the bottle caps waiting to be sorted.

Hard at work.

What was left at the end of the day.

Fortunately, my friends didn't seem to think that this was a crazy way to spend a Sunday afternoon. They really helped me get a lot of work done. I still have a ways to go but I cannot imagine how long it would have taken me if they had not been there to pitch in.

Anyway, I really need to get back to work. Sorting, sorting, sorting. It's a short work week for me because of the Thanksgiving holiday and all. And I had a bit of a vacation last week. I flew out to New Jersey with Eric, he was going for work. I stayed with a friend in Brooklyn and she and I played in NYC. It was great! But now I must put my nose to the grindstone.

New York City Museum Exhibition Recommendations of the Day:

1. Pipilotti Rist: Pour Your Body Out - MoMA - through February 2, 2009

2. Alexander Calder: The Paris Years 1926-1933 - Whitney Museum of American Art - through February 15, 2009

Both exhibitions were incredible. Completely inspiring. Reminds me of why I do what I do.

Bottle Cap Update

The bottle caps are starting to roll in. I picked up my first batch last Friday from someone in Sebastopol. I estimate he gave me around 400 caps that he had personally collected. I didn't count them before I integrated them into the rest of my collection so I am not sure.

I realized that if I want to keep track of my progress I need to have some way to estimate quantity so that I don't have to actually count every single one. It's time consuming enough to sort them. So, I now know that 1 pound is about 190 bottle caps.

Yesterday I got two packages in the mail. One was from Novi, MI. The gal who sent me these bottle caps is part of the Wine and Cheese Project. Here's what she wrote about it:

The Wine and Cheese project originated at a catering company. As is frequent with any businesses, they do not recycle. A few employees decided to take action. Usually recyclables include beer bottles, bottle caps, wine corks, and wine, champage/liquor bottles. At this time, The Wine & Cheese Project has gifted over 9,800 bottles this year, 8,000 wine corks, 300 plastic tubs and 0 beer bottle caps. Lamps, tumbled glass cabinet handles, mosaic glass vase, a wine bottle wall, are some of the artistic re-uses W&C has faciltated.

Cool, huh? I got close to 2000 bottles caps from her.

The other package was from a guy in L.A. who had been saving bottle caps for his own project but decided to give them to me instead. He sent me around 760.

Also, last night I picked up caps from a someone who lives in the Outer Sunset district of San Francisco. He and his girlfriend made a bottle cap dress in 2007 but hadn't stopped collecting them after the project was complete. I got a little over 1100 caps from them. They were grateful I was taking them off their hands.

Today I made two pick-ups in Berkeley. The first was a women who has been, as she put it, "saving bottle caps for a long, long time." I got over 4000 from her. Whoa!

The other guy gave me around 1700. He had accumulated his collection over a six year period.

And this is all just the tip of the iceburg. As of today I estimate that I have 17,400 of the 20,874 that I need. That last 3500 should be a piece of cake at this rate. Now I really have got to get to work!

I don't think I am going to need to worry about having enough bottle caps for future art projects, either. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. It's funny - after I finished the Bottle Cap Tree I swore I would not make art with bottle caps ever again. Never say Never.

Cool Bottle Cap Art (That's Not My Own) of the Day: These came in a couple of the packages of bottle caps that I recently received.

Wow.

When I first got involved with Burning Man back in 2007 I knew there was something about it that felt right to me. First, there is just the immense appreciation and encouragement and support that I have continued to receive from the community of my art. That is huge and I am incredibly grateful for it. It helps keep me doin' what I do!

Then there is all of the remarkable people that I have had the pleasure and privilege to have gotten to know during the past couple of years. Not to mention the awesome things that everyone contributes and adds to make Black Rock City such a wonderful place to live, if only temporarily.

All of that right there is enough to move me. But something happened today that just blew my mind. I didn't think that I could get more impressed with the quality of people that are what make up Burning Man. But I did.

See, I put out a modest little post request to the Burning Man email newsletter Jack Rabbit Speaks a while back asking for help with bottle cap collecting for my Bottle Cap Bar project. That post was included in the the newsletter that went out today. Literally, within an hour of it being sent, my email inbox began to be flooded with messages from Burners wanting to help: offering to give me bottle caps that they currently have or to begin the collecting process on their own, etc. Fantastic! I am touched. Truly.

This gives me new hope that Bottle Cap Bar can be a reality for 2009! What a dream. I started to get so overwhelmed with the magnitude of the project that I didn't think I would be able to do this for next year but now it actually feels possible.

I really did not expect the response to be so large or so fast. I am overjoyed and grateful. Thank you Burning Man Community. You are part of what this is for and what makes this possible. See you at the Bottle Cap Bar!

Realization of the Day: People Care!