Obsessive Consumption = Endless Creativity = Kate Bingaman-BurtWhen I discovered through the book Handmade Nation, Kate Bingaman-Burt illustrations a few days ago, I realized that even the worst things in life can be seen with a positive perspective. She is got the question - What Did You Buy Today?
Most of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about what we buy on any given day. A latte here, movie tickets there. The mundane stuff of life that eats at bank accounts and adds up fast. Kate Bingaman-Burt, a Portland graphic designer, used to be the same way. Then one night five years ago, she added up her credit card bills and realized she was more than $20,000 in debt. "It wasn't like I'd been on some wild spending spree," she said. "It was coffee and magazines and everyday things."
Still, she felt embarrassed and very guilty. So she did what any artist would: Picked a pen. She began hand-drawing near replicas of her monthly statements, re-creating every last ledger line and decimal point in a penance she vowed to continue until the debt was gone. In February 2006, she went further, making daily ink drawings of something she's bought. She posts them on the blog portion of her Web site, obsessiveconsumption.com.
She's gotten national attention for the work, including a mention in The New York Times Magazine. Bingaman-Burt sells pieces online -- credit card bills go for the minimum monthly payment -- and produces a monthly zine. Princeton Architectural Press is publishing a book of her drawings in 2010. She began Obsessive Consumption in 2002 by taking pictures of things she bought for an early blog. At Mississippi State University, where she got her first teaching gig, she suffered her credit card realization and turned her art into her life. Or life into art. She's not sure, either. Read the complete article at Oregonlive.com written by Anna Griffin.
Most of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about what we buy on any given day. A latte here, movie tickets there. The mundane stuff of life that eats at bank accounts and adds up fast. Kate Bingaman-Burt, a Portland graphic designer, used to be the same way. Then one night five years ago, she added up her credit card bills and realized she was more than $20,000 in debt. "It wasn't like I'd been on some wild spending spree," she said. "It was coffee and magazines and everyday things."
Still, she felt embarrassed and very guilty. So she did what any artist would: Picked a pen. She began hand-drawing near replicas of her monthly statements, re-creating every last ledger line and decimal point in a penance she vowed to continue until the debt was gone. In February 2006, she went further, making daily ink drawings of something she's bought. She posts them on the blog portion of her Web site, obsessiveconsumption.com.
She's gotten national attention for the work, including a mention in The New York Times Magazine. Bingaman-Burt sells pieces online -- credit card bills go for the minimum monthly payment -- and produces a monthly zine. Princeton Architectural Press is publishing a book of her drawings in 2010. She began Obsessive Consumption in 2002 by taking pictures of things she bought for an early blog. At Mississippi State University, where she got her first teaching gig, she suffered her credit card realization and turned her art into her life. Or life into art. She's not sure, either. Read the complete article at Oregonlive.com written by Anna Griffin.
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