I Wanna Win!

My teacup tale of the week:  The Nelson Atkins Art Museum has a new exhibit starting today… Clare Twomey created 1345 duel handled cups that she is giving away…When I first read about her concept I didn’t like the look of the cup, but wanted one despite…then the more I read about what’s happening the more I wanted to participate…so bad that I actually became a member of the art museum ($65) just so I could have a higher chance of winning a cup.

She had an exhibit in Europe where she made a bunch of little birds and scattered them around an art museum, and the visitors as well as the people curating the show stole them one by one.

When she was visiting Kansas City she became fascinated with a china set that a family donated to the art museum with a contract that frequently used the term “in trust forever.”

Following suite she replicated her favorite piece out of that collection and is giving them to visitors to keep forever.  The viewer must sign a contract picking out which cup they want in particular, and sign the contract they will take care of the cup, display it, treat it as a piece of art, etc.

Here’s the catch that sparked my competitive nature:  500 of the cups are going to be given away tonight to patrons of the art museum.  Patrons are allowed tonight to pick out a cup from a special lot and they will draw names until all the cups are gone, first name drawn for the cup gets it, and they will not substitute one cup for another.

After tonight they will give away 60 a week in the same manor but it’s open to the public.  You can fill out a contract every day if you want to, and they will continue until February.

I don’t even like the cup, but the more I got to thinking about it the more in love with the idea I became….there will be a website where cup owners can upload photos of their cup and talk about their experiences with it… so that means all 1345 owners will “forever” be linked together.

I wanted the higher chance of getting a cup. I like the idea of donating to the art museum…I respect what they do, and I like the idea of being a patron (which means I get to park for free, I get to go to the paid exhibits for free, and participate in all kinds of special events)…but honestly I just want one of the stupid cups, so I signed up as a “friend” of the art museum today, and I went to pick out the cup I hope to win...I'll be honest all of the cups looked the same to me…and again, I’m not very fond of the cup… it’s larger than a coffee cup, but smaller than a bowl….I looked and looked, noticed tiny blemishes on some, and small differences in the glazing, but they all looked the same… until I came upon cup #0393… there were no dark spots and the inscribed word "forever" was crystal clear... that was my cup, I just knew it, and sure enough after playing card games with friends until 2am, I logged onto my email account to discover I won my cup!!!!!  I'm so excited!!!