Election, 2015 Milk Campaign Dissecting the General Election imagery across various newspapers by cutting it into milk bottle tops in an attempt to work out who to vote for.
Humble milk bottle top – Alice McCabe
An artist with a keen interest in all things ephemeral, Alice McCabe, daughter of Honor Godfrey (founder and life-blood of the Ephemera Society of Australia), shares her work with milk bottle tops.
I am not an expert on the development of milk bottle tops worldwide, but I have been collecting them for approximately 15 years. The bulk of my collection are one of three British varieties for semi-skimmed and full fat milk distributed via milkmen through two separate companies in London. These examples also include a few bespoke designs as advertising stunts for other brands and products (e.g. banana milk top) and a special Christmas design.
Coffee cream lids
From 2010 until 2015 I lived in Zurich and there, I collected the Swiss equivalent; coffee cream lids, which is a preferred collectors’ pastime there. They have manuals dedicated to each company and each year of production, akin to an ultimate album.
Alongside archiving and organising these milk bottle tops in my collection, I now make my own milk bottle tops, cut from: newspaper, office pamphlets, political news stories, flower catalogues etc.
I am attaching a few examples of my works and a couple of lines about each work in the hope that as fellow milk-bottle closure enthusiasts you might enjoy them.
Milk bottle top commission for another milk bottle top enthusiast in SW London and avid backgammon player. The board was commissioned in 2019 and completed in 2022, by which time I had found a way to part with some of this collection.
I have also used the shape of the coffee cream lid as the starting point for a visual diary.
Milkbottle tops cut from personal photographs on subject of natural environment, included images of forlorn velvet floral sofas on street corners, alongside images of countryside and bouquets made (I work with flowers for a living.) These were then chopped up and arranged on this piece made predominantly from millet, an emergency drought food crop.
I am also hoping to do a residency in Switzerland and as part of this visit some of the manufacturers of these lids. As part of this research trip, I would be delighted to share my findings with you.
This article was first published as an ESA post in 2024.