I ‘ve always loved art old and new. And while I’m not an artist myself bringing art to others is at the heart of Cafe Projections. Quite a while back I came across a Photoshop plugin to format an image into a shape suitable for use on Empire or Bell lampshades. It intrigued especially because the shape was the inverse of that of a coffee cup. I immediately began to make my own personally designed fabric, coffee sleeves. I used images from various artists works in the public domain, Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Monet as well as some political sleeves around the 2008 elections.

Priorities

Cafe Projections began with the intent to present art on coffee sleeves. In short time I began seeing large Coffee Sleeve manufacturers offering free sleeves with classic art and advertising. I can’t tell you if I was first do do this or not. It doesn’t matter to me, it never took off and I was unable to compete with their enterprise.

As is the case for most of us, family and work took precedence over personal play. And so, my efforts were focused toward financial sustainability in software development and my curiosity for any artistic creativity waned. Occasionally I’d create a new design here or there and post it on Etsy to see if it gained any traction but as it was not near my primary focus I did little to promote the products.

Sources

I am now in a position to put more energy into some unique and attractive product designs. Ones that will bring art culture to young and old and hopefully encourage engagement in the tactile and creative nature that art has to offer. In the beginning the art will be from free public domain sources, Wikimedia, Guttenberg Press, Flickr Images. But I encourage all artists, illustrators and writers of all mediums to reach out to me incorporate their works my product designs.

The Journey

Ideas are cheap, execution, implementation and production take considerably more effort. For the past twenty years I’ve been stock-piling my ideas, filtering out the wheat from the chaff. With time available, I’m in a position re-focus my efforts and see where they take me. Wish me luck and welcome to my journey.