In New York City, blue and yellow MetroCards are as ubiquitous as pigeons and taxi cabs. For most people, the little pieces of plastic serve a single purpose: getting from here to there. But for artists like <a href="http://stephenshaheen.com/panel/etc">Stephen Shaheen</a>, MetroCards are a creative material with an <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/ny-artist-thomas-mckean-recycles-metrocards-into-amazing-sculpture-mosaics/">endless amount of possibilities</a>. For a recent exhibit at <a href="http://www.sloanfineart.com/">Sloan Fine Art Gallery</a>, Shaheen created Metrobench, a sturdy, usable bench made from 5,000 recycled MetroCards. Every year, the MTA prints more than 170 million MetroCards, but, for Shaheen, amassing just a couple thousand was no small feat.

Shaheen's <a href="http://stephenshaheen.com/blog/metrobsession">impetus for creating the bench</a> was the call for submissions to "<a href="http://singlefare.blogspot.com/">Single Fare 2: Please Swipe Again</a>," an art show of <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/artists-upcycle-1300-metrocards-into-mini-works-of-art/">MetroCard-based art</a>. Most artists submit works that use the cards as a miniature canvas for paintings, but Shaheen wanted to <a href="http://stephenshaheen.com/blog/my-yellow-black-blue-valentine">create a sculpture</a>, in particular, a seating element.

Soon after he came up with the bench idea, he realized that he would need <a href="http://stephenshaheen.com/blog/my-yellow-black-blue-valentine">several thousand MetroCards</a>. After a few <a href="http://stephenshaheen.com/blog/enter-metropolitan-transit-authority">failed attempts</a> at getting old cards <a href="http://stephenshaheen.com/blog/golden-goose-chase">from the MTA</a>, Shaheen took to Craigslist. Within a week, he had amassed all the cards he needed.

Much like mass transit itself, the bench represents thousands of different journeys converging into a single moment. And while the MetroCard is a source of movement for people, Shaheen's creation is a place of rest.

Metrobench has a base made out of steel, but Shaheen designed it in such a way that it appears to be created solely from MetroCards.

The tight layering of the cards creates a brilliant striped pattern, and, as <a href="http://stephenshaheen.com/blog/metro-4">Shaheen notes</a>, the different shades of yellow resemble wood grain.

When creating the sculpture, Shaheen described his process on his blog. "It is essential, in my opinion, to create a design that integrates the colors, and in fact each unit, in a way that makes the whole something more than an appliqué of Metrocards on steel," Shaheen wrote. "The new pattern has to have its own identity and has to contribute to a sense of new content in the assemblage."