Bottle Caps: One Inch of Design

When I was a kid back in Winston-Salem, NC, the local movie theater held Saturday morning screenings for children called “The Kiddie Show.” There they showed movies for kids—even the old black and white cliff-hanging serials. I remember seeing “The Blob” starring Steve McQueen in one of his first movies (1958). Of course, the Tom and Jerry and Roadrunner cartoons were shown as well. What's all this got to do with bottle caps? Well, usually one of the soft drink companies sponsored the event and admission was free if you brought in 10 bottle caps. So, during the week, kids in my neighborhood would rummage through the used bottle cap bucket directly under the refrigerated soft drink dispenser at the corner grocery, looking for the special cap that we needed to get into the upcoming Saturday movie. If you didn't have the right number of caps, you had to come up with a whopping 25¢ or so to get in.

Bottle caps are beautiful, if you take an extra minute to look. Here’s a few for you to peruse.

An AM repost from 11/29/08.

Accidental Mysteries to Open at Wake Forest

(Above) Peabody Essex Museum; Salem, Mass. 2007 - 2008

(Above) South Shore Arts; Munster, Indiana 2008

(Above) Anonymous photo, collection of Accidental Mysteries.

(Above) Anonymous photo, collection of Accidental Mysteries.

(Above) The Art Museum of the University of Memphis; Memphis, TN 2006

(Above) Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art; Chicago, IL 2006

(Above) The Sheldon Art Galleries; Saint Louis, Missouri 2006

(Above) The DeVos Art Museum, Northern Michigan University; Marquette, MI 2008


WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, IN MY HOMETOWN OF WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. will be the 7th venue to host the traveling exhibition “Accidental Mysteries: Extraordinary Vernacular Photographs.” The exhibition opens at the Charlotte and Phillip Hanes Art Gallery on October 22 and runs through December 9, 2009.

I will be giving a talk on Thursday, October 29 at 3 pm in Room 9 of the Art Center. Learn more here. The university press release is also available.

The opening reception is Friday, October 30, from 5 pm to 7 pm. If you have never visited the Accidental Mysteries website, you can visit by simply clicking here.

If any AM blog readers are in the area, I would love to meet you.

If your museum or university art gallery would like to know how this exhibition can come to you, please e-mail me at: fosterdesign (at) charter.net.

The Ritual

I DO NOT PARTICULARLY LIKE CIGARETTE SMOKE, THOUGH I GREW UP IN THE HEART of tobacco country. I was born in and lived for the first 24 years of my life in Winston-Salem, NC and believe it or not, attended R.J. Reynolds High School. My father smoked in the house all my life. He smoked Camels, and in fact I still have the last pack of newly-opened Camels he had in his pocket when he died in 1977.

We all know that smoking tobacco causes various forms of cancer, lung disease, and I’m not even going to mention how annoying and harmful the smoke is to those who do not smoke. And the nicotine is super addictive. But I have a theory about smoking addiction I am going to throw out there—and let me know if you think I am off base. I believe that part of the addiction is the ritual of opening a new pack of cigarettes. Without knowing it, smokers actually enjoy and look forward to the process of opening a new pack. The cigarettes are fresh and this process I am about to explain delays your satisfaction just long enough—I contend, to actually awaken a smoker’s taste buds and build anticipation. I’ll explain:

First of all, cigarettes are beautifully packaged. When you pick up a pack to open it, you are holding quite a beautiful little object—years of thought, design, sales strategy and manufacturing technology have gone into that single pack of cigarettes. It’s like opening a little gift. The first part of the ritual is to hit the bottom of the entire pack of cigs in the palm of your hand a few times, I guess to loosen the cigarettes and drive them slightly to the top of the pack. This is just a warm up exercise for the real shaking yet to come.

Next, comes the unwrapping, which always has a step-by-step process. Completely covered by cellophane, it’s tightly wrapped to seal in the flavor. At the top of the pack is a colored band, loose on one end. You are to find it, and pull it around the circumference of the pack, releasing the top cap of the cellophane, which usually falls away to the bar top or floor. Now, as the cellophane band has released the top, the final step of the process is about to begin: you are just one step away from seeing your little beauties. They await you. This is the part where you may tear into the neatly folded top. Go ahead, rip into it!

Two rows of ten cigarettes fit in the pack as tight as sardines. They never disappoint. They are NEVER out of line. Twenty little circles, representing the “tobacco end” of the cigarettes await your selection and consumption. They are yours. Then, you go through the real “entire pack shake” to get one or more cigarettes to raise their little heads from the others. Who wants to go first? You make your selection and away you go—ready to light the lucky volunteer, which is yet another part of the ritual.

These beautiful, foreign cigarette packages were found on Flickr.