Over the spring break, I decided to do some research on the number of trees that are cut down in order to process paper, wood, grocery bags, and packaging material. According to a website recently published by the University of Southern Indiana, the average person uses around 680 pounds of paper yearly, or the equivalence of 7 trees. Initially, it was extremely shocking to see how much paper the average person used. The website also reported that the U.S. over 2 billion trees yearly, in which only half of the trees are reused and over 1 billion pounds of paper are thrown away yearly rather than being reused. While communities such as Saratoga often recycle almost all of the plastic, paper, and glass products, it was a bit shocking to see how over half of the amount of paper we use on a daily basis is recycled, which causes us to have to cut down more trees to process paper. By learning about how paper products are created and the negative effects involved, I decided to figure out a way to utilize recycled paper by creating a cup.
Unfortunately, this task didn't turn out quite as planned. During spring break, I got a little carried away and ended up not spending as much time on the project as I would've wished which compromised the aesthetic appeal of the cup.
With a piece of cardboard from the previous week's project, I ended up rolling and bending it into a cylinder and taped the ends together; I later cut a circle to fit at the bottom of the cylinder and attached a rectangle handle on the side of the cup. Proceeding this, I decided to paper mache the cardboard with used paper and glue. While this worked out pretty well in the beginning, the dried up glue mixture ended up creating a lumpy and rough texture and also compromised the proportions of the cup, which went against my original intentions of creating an aesthetically appealing cup.
This setback taught me a lot; while I originally felt that I would be make this art project with only a couple hours, I realized that I would probably compromise an important aspect of the project, including the aesthetic appeal or function of the project. By not spending enough time to properly think about the idea or actually make the project, I ended up realizing the importance of avoiding to procrastinate.
In the upcoming weeks, I hope to wrap up the project by learning more about how random objects that can't be recycled can be reused.
