This fall I've been sketching in the Inner Harbour / Skeleton Park neighbourhood of Kingston ....on coffee cups.
The Elm Cafe was started only four years ago and has become a bit of a community hub for the creatives who are colonizing what has been a neglected part of town. From the beginning the Cafe has been used as a gallery, now curated by the
Skeleton Arts Festival, as well as the venue for a musical coffee house hosted by our multi-talented friend and neighbour,
Gary Rasberry. And so, with this context, I hope you can see the symbolism behind using their coffee cups a medium for vignettes of the neighbourhood.
As I write this I've done about 50 cups, and as I walk the neighbourhood, I see more subjects everywhere. The first ones were done as felt-tip pen line drawings, but I quickly moved on to ink and watercolour and have had some fun experimenting with different amounts of colour and even popping elements up on foam core. There are no rules, other than combing the Elm cups with the immediate neighbourhood.
Logan (the L of ELM) has been generous in allowing me to have a bit of wall on to display the cups. The plan is to change them weekly through until spring and with some luck, find a gallery or venue to display the whole batch as a show at some point. I hope the sketches draw attention to the interesting character of the neighbourhood and encourage my neighbours to read the stories in this urban landscape.
