Surely there’s a better title for this entry than “my favorite drainage container,” but I gave up trying to think of it. The photo above shows...my favorite drainage container for meltwater from a sculpture, which is, of course, an empty water cooler bottle. Here are the reasons:

1. 1)it’s easy to see how full it is
   

2. 2)it’s hard to spill when you’re getting rid of the water
   

3. 3)it holds about the right amount of meltwater for most sculptures
   

4. 4)the drainage tube can’t easily get knocked out, which can be very bad if it happens
   

5. 5)it’s often available onsite, especially, for some reason, at convention centers (in my experience)
   

    I also like to use Rubbermaid Roughneck storage boxes, which are basically big 18 gallon buckets that usually cost about five bucks at any Home Depot, Lowes, or WalMart. They’re big enough to hold almost all the water that a sculpture could possibly produce, and they can also be used to hold both the sculpture and the meltwater when you take it away after the event.