Sara Merritt - 2024

Artist's Statement

I used second-hand mugs and tea cups to make a Solar System, painting each cup like a planet. Including the Sun, and Pluto there were ten in total. I wanted to do physical painting because Earth had limited resources. We have to reduce our planetary intake, and reuse the resources humanity has already processed. There are no other planetary options in our solar system. It's all within the planetary boundaries of Earth. Our cup. We can’t take what we need from other planets. I went to the thrift store a few times to pick out the perfect cups. Used what paint I have in the house. It took 5 hours over the course of two weeks. Thirty minutes per mug. I used NASA and cartoon reference photos.