The first time I learned of the artist, Steve Mueller, was from my wife, Kristy. Kristy grew up a few houses down the road from Steve and was childhood friends with his daughter. She told me of one particular visit in which she saw him pour coffee and blue paint onto paper and cover it with a screen. Hours later he would return to find everything dry, leaving an abstract image on the paper. At first, she thought he was pulling her chain, but as it turns out, the coffee pot was a few cups short that morning. He was actually painting with coffee and as you can imagine, this left a crazy picture in my mind! A few years later, Steve taught me his process and here’s what I have to show. Steve describes his process below, which I have adopted and made my own by applying the elements of water, pigment, and coffee with different techniques:
“These materials are put together outdoors, sometimes with paper towels or sheets of plastic. Gravity, surface tension and evaporation are allowed to run their course(s)... The images look something like the mapping of the coast that inspired them, aerial views, estuary, bays, desert, ocean - but this is an accident and an unexpected souvenir. The larger idea was not paintings of the coast but by the coast, the same forces encountered there of light and wind and water rising and receding.”
8"x10"
12"x16"
All images © Copyright of Joshua H. Busch