I have been photographing the bottoms of my coffee mugs for years, and every now and then something really jumps out at me from the remains. No surprise for me, being that I see faces and forms in many of nature’s random places. Coffee grounds might be considered one of many ideal places to find such denizens. They’re a great little mix of randomness and the laws of physics operating together, and you never know what will peer back at you.
Eventually, I had amassed enough interesting images to consider a photographic exhibition, and approached my great friend Eli, who runs not only a gallery space but also Corner House Coffee, on the 2nd floor of Aghmashenebeli Avenue 109, in Tbilisi. With the theme of coffee, how could he say no? He said yes.
I then asked another great friend, Michelle, who has curated several art shows for Eli already, and she agreed to help me curate it, with her son assisting too. Together, we chose some pieces which stood out from the crowd.
A couple of these are my favorites. A horn-rim-bespectacled lady straight out of the Far Side comics, calmly being swallowed by a Lovecraftian slug-monster, stands out, because what are the odds of ever finding such a scene in coffee grounds? It’ll never happen again. The same for a much larger piece, which rates a triptych of zooming-in shots. This, leftover grounds from a cold coffee brewing in an enamel teapot, is called “The Tyrant Dreams of Mushroom Clouds”. A disturbing image, not necessarily a pleasing one, but powerful. I chose to spray-varnish both of these pieces, to preserve them forever. What, I can’t buy my wife a new teapot to replace that one?
We did all the exhibition advertising for free, on my wife’s and my burgeoning joint Facebook page and other social media; no posters this time. I chose a printer on Freedom Square to print and foam-board back the prints at 300 DPI, and they did a great job. True, their maximum smallest dimension is 90 cm. But for this show, it was enough.
The day before the opening, my curatorial team and I hung the prints in the gallery, finding first some natural groupings by theme, such as animals or people. Hanging was quick using wires, hooks and a ladder, and then directing the track lighting. Most of one wall was apparently not useable due to a projector needing to be used on it off and on during parts of the show’s duration. So, still wanting that space to be used at least for the opening evening, I got Eli’s permission to run a looped video.
Have you ever seen milk or cream being poured into stirred coffee, close up and in slow motion? The magic of turbulence. Michelle, her husband Bart and I filmed this at their place, using a new Sony camera paired with a specially adapted manual-focus Nikon macro lens, at 60 frames/second, to be slowed down to 30 fps when running it.
Then, after some trouble, I found a free online program which would let me render this video backwards, and then I spliced the two together. But when I started it for the show opening, I let the backwards part run first. Still coffee starts turning around on its own, faster and faster, eddies and galaxies forming in it. The cream jug’s spout appears, sucking up the cream; my hand unstirs the black coffee to stillness; and then it runs forwards. A bit of magic.
About 50 people showed up on opening evening, including three ladies who are Lali’s Facebook followers and had seized the chance to meet this minor celebrity in person. A couple of my old Teach and Learn with Georgia (TLG) friends also came; and numerous other friends and some unknowns too.
We had a speech and some snacks ready. They looked around, asked some questions or made comments, and left, possibly dazzled, puzzled, or some mix of the two. I was happy with the turnout, hoping some of my vision rubs off on others and makes them look a bit deeper into the drained coffee mug. What might be looking back?
Blog by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
