This all started with curiosity.
I saw a ladder on top of a building near mine, and I climbed it. I fell to the roof below and was in a coma for a month.
That experience changed my life. It also changed my outlook. I became more able to appreciate beauty in everyday things, and that changed what I saw in the world.
After what I experienced, ordinary things no longer felt ordinary to me. I wanted to find beauty where no one expected it, and use it.
I didn't want to simply admire beauty. I wanted to create it. I wanted to make something beautiful and share it.
I'm Reed Slater, an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2012, I've been using steeped tea bags as a medium to create art.
I don't really even like to drink tea. I make art with it.
I had the idea that I could capture the energy of tea bags to make a picture, so I bought a sampler box of assorted teas. I started testing.
The first time I tried to make a tea print, I had to see if it would even work. I brewed the tea bags, arranged them on paper, and let them dry there.
At first, I questioned whether what I was making was art because the process was so unusual. I remember asking my artist friend if this qualified as art and he told me anything goes.
Soon my studio became a laboratory, with sheets of paper at different stages of drying on every horizontal surface.
Someone will ask. They always do.