Disposable Income

Evenly space apart side-to-side, top to bottom, 196 cans are set up in a four-foot square grid of 14 cans across and 14 cans down. The cans have been crushed and are displayed either top up or top down. Using multiple layers of transparent spray paint washes, the face-up cans are all aged or tarnished, while the bottom-up cans are shinny bright and silver. The brighter silver cans are also slightly taller (or thicker as they are viewed jetting out from the wall).

Up close, it’s just a bunch of cans. Stepping back away from the display you begin to be able to distinguish a text or a number created by the brighter silver cans; $3.

Three dollars is the approximate value of recycling these aluminum cans. Ever stop to think of the effort it takes to walk around town collecting these. Dumpster diving, pulling them from street gutters, lugging them around in a shopping cart or trying to balance hundreds and hundreds on a bicycle. 1000 cans to make 15 bucks. We just toss them, or put them in the recycling bin. How desperate would you have to be to collect 200 cans for three dollars?