“I had a dinky plastic drinking cup that rested on the top shelf of my parents’ kitchen cupboards. Neither of my parents are living now, and to keep a few of their trinkets in plain sight is a comfort. From this simple scratched-up plastic cup, I can picture my parents’ elderly hands as they used that cup. I can see the subtle turning, tilting, tapping of the ice cubes to speed the cooling of the liquid; I can see the cup finally reaching their lips for a refreshing sip of juice, water, and in my dad’s case, the occasional whisky.”
“The problem was that this humble plastic cup got lost among the battalions of glassware on my shelves. Weeks, months went by and I might not see it. When I did notice it, my reactions were always the same: the warm glow I described above; and, a sense of loss that I didn’t see the cup more often, that those cherished memories got lost in the everyday.”
“By placing that dinky plastic drinking cup in a shadow box on the wall, I lifted it above the everyday. In the act of framing, the cup becomes a celebration of my parents, a tribute to my childhood, and a reliving of a lost time.”
–Mark
