So here they are. More coffee filters. In the raw, straight from the pile and into the bucket. Salvaged once again. I wonder if the original cup of coffee or frothy cappuccino was as compelling to look at and as sumptuous to smell as these filters getting their first rinse? I love working with these strange pieces of paper. When we have coffee at our house, which is rare, we use a French Press. So for me, these are an entirely new material which have, until recently, just been part of my decomposing compost. Now, though, with my sister's inspiration, they have become yet another invitation to explore our material world. When I take them out of the 5-gallon compost collection bucket and move them into the rinsing tub in our sink, these dirty filters become precious materials filled with creative potential. These coffee filters are soft between my fingers when I pull them out of the tub and hang them up to dry. Once on the rack, all I notice is the play of light on their textured fiber. All I want to do is move in closer to explore these materials about which I know so little. Once again, my compost invites me to consider more than meets the eye. While I have an idea of what my sister, Sarah C. Swett, might create out of these filters, their back story, like so many back stories, remains a mystery. Clearly, this narrative is unfolding as I write, Sarah's imagination leading her and my investigations taking me where they go. But here we are, unfiltered, making it up along the way. It does seem, however, that ours is a circular narrative, filled with the ebbs and flows of our lives and curiosities. Stay tuned for more...
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Lyn Swett Miller
reframing the narrative, one day, one image at a time Let's ReFrame: By Degrees
A place where photographer Lyn Swett Miller considers wonder, joy and transformation in a complex world. Archive
September 2021
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