They\u2019re not giving the MTA a pass.<\/p>\n
The offbeat artists who use MetroCards for their masterpieces are in mourning as the blue-and-plastic passes are about to be swiped off the face of the Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really in denial for a long, long time,\u201d said artist Thomas McKean<\/a>, who had hoped the infamous disorganization of the MTA would mean that the contactless OMNY system would never truly replace the old card system.<\/p>\n Thomas McKean has been making collages out of MetroCards for two decades. Matthew McDermott<\/p>\n \u201cI really am in a sort of gradual layers of \u2014 I know there are more important things in the world to be upset about \u2014 grief and shock that they seemingly, in the middle of the night, removed all the MetroCard machines from the subways. They were there one day and gone the next.\u201d<\/p>\n McKean has been using the cards in his artwork for more than two decades, ever since his creative juices first started flowing in the subway as he wondered how many words he could make using the 10 letters in \u201cMetroCard.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, he\u2019s sold hundreds of thousands of coffee cups, baseball caps, skyscrapers and other mosaics made entirely of cut-up MetroCards \u2014 including imitation MetroCards made from the real ones\u2019 carcasses.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something about the MetroCard,\u201d McKean said, adding that even tourists from \u201cIowa to Ireland\u201d see the iconic value in the piece of plastic. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is one of these inanimate objects that managed somehow to almost feel alive,\u201d he added. \u201cIt had a spirit to it and it was a commonality amongst New Yorkers. Everybody had one in their wallet or their pocket. People really developed a fondness for it.\u201d <\/p>\n McKean also makes sculptures using the MetroCards. Matthew McDermott<\/p>\n McKean has a few thousand MetroCards left over, which he hopes will last a few years. Matthew McDermott<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody had one in their wallet or their pocket. People really developed a fondness for it,\u201d said McKean. Matthew McDermott<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see that with the OMNY card<\/a>. It seems like it was designed by a committee.\u201d<\/p>\n McKean has a stockpile of a few thousand MetroCards in his home, which he anticipates will last him several more years if he continues using every last shard.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a strange thought that one day I won\u2019t have enough to finish a collage. I\u2019m trying to brace myself for that,\u201d McKean said.<\/p>\n Nina Boesch started using MetroCards for her art in an effort to recycle the discarded trash. Nina Boesch<\/p>\n