Jenn Hermus – Had Johannes Vermeer painted coffee makers, he may have chosen this as one of his studies. A shaft of natural light from window bounces and plays off of the bulbous carafe and whitewashes the sill. The placement of the device is as key as the machine itself in our analysis. Its proximity to the window shows that its user is slow to wake and that she must subject herself to as much stimulation as possible to reach full consciousness. You could almost picture her squinting into the new day, assembling her morning cup, thinking about the innumerable tasks ahead of her.

Another seemingly tangential detail that helps in our analysis is the cater-cornered chopstick atop the basket. The utensil undoubtedly serves to clean the permanent coffee filter, and being that it is plastic, it cannot leave behind dangerously small pieces of wood behind. By employing a chopstick beyond its original purpose, the owner reveals that she can be quite crafty at recycling objects to fit new functions—the type who can see potentiality in discarded jars, boxes, dead pens, and other such fodder.

As for the maker itself, this sizable and programmable Proctor Silex usually denotes a sociable and well-organized personality. Even if the owner does not take advantage of all of its features, it still shows a desire for daily order and mindful scheduling. She wants her mornings to be more orderly, to take a different shape than they usually have. For instance, we know that on this particular morning, the ritual was rushed, evidenced by the spilled grounds found at the base of the heat plate and the flecks of sugar on the counter. Even if this morning was somewhat harried, this does not mean that the ends matched the means. Like a painter who lets his acrylics crust on the palette, she may be more concerned with the object of her task rather than her performance in reaching it. In other words, the coffee, in all likelihood, was well-brewed and pleasing. We know this because the level of moisture in the pot and the meager dregs left in it. The apparent contradiction of owning a machine dedicated to order and calculation (notice the dual water windows) with the manner in which it was kept at the time of the photo, may actually reveal genious—the genius of the artist or the mad scientist.