After deciding to continue collecting the coffee grounds from my coffee breaks, I bought a large, dark brown terracotta pot. It reminded me of an urn from an oriental bazaar and I knew the moment I saw it that I’d found the perfect pot for my collected coffee grounds. So far the coffee grounds, which I’ve been collecting for two years, will fill nearly a quarter of this pot. My collection contains grounds from solitary coffee breaks as well as breaks spent with friends; lively breaks and weary ones, meaningful, trivial, inspired and routine.
The coffee grounds are dried in various ways; in paper napkins for example, which bear the traces of the grounds in landscape-like stains, that serve as both inspiration for drawings as well as a ground to draw on. While drying, the coffee grounds are stirred repeatedly to prevent mold. When the grounds are completely dry, they are poured into the large terracotta pot, which might only be full after two or three years. I can go on collecting this way at leisure until at some point I’ll have a big pot full of breaks. This broad time horizon affords me a certainty of always having a project at hand — even if it is just drinking coffee and collecting coffee grounds.