INSIDE a box.....

(work in progress...)



I've had a love affair with the BOX since I was small...I used to take the lids off of shoeboxes, turn them on their side, and glue cutouts inside to make lil' kid dioramas of haunted houses, graveyards...etc. I think this was something I picked up from my oldest sister....who was into a more refined version of this....

I've had many favorite boxes over the years, some lost to me now, others, much loved and disintigrated....Presents, with their inner cargo....a mystery until they are opened and then they become superfluous....




(present from sister suzie..)




I've become fascinated by them as a metaphore for the inividual...what goes on inside of them....seeing them as an object, rather than a container...They are endlessly fascinating....





(cabinet above my workspace)




When I was in my second year of college, I was introduced to Joseph Cornell, and the rest was irrelevant....His boxes were a revelation....Like the ones I had done as a kid, but elevated to the realm of poetry...beautiful in and of themselves....and any meaning was what you brought to them....(I found out later that he had an interesting life as well....including a relationship with a young woman, who eventually ran off with someone, and stole a number of his beloved box assemblages to boot...)...Every time I see one of his assemblages in a museum it is like Christmas morning, walking into our living room as a kid, and seeing the presents under the tree....I dream of owning one, some day....




(Marblized paper box from VIV)




Discovering a box is one of my not so secret pleasures: An old toolbox, an empty cigar box(though they are a bit too trendy these days...), an old rusty utility casing in an abandoned building...










or this old box, found in my present apartment, one of many things left behind by some long gone roommate....At first I thought I needed a missing key to open it until I figured out the trick to the hasps....and inside I found this....










An old SINGER sewing machine, begging to be fixed up and used, instead of forgotten, which it very nearly was...(and I mean REALLY old...)










There are many other definitions for a BOX (although I am still a sucker for the classic square or oblong variety) ...like this thang I got as a trade for services rendered to a very talented ceramics student, while at Penland in North Carolina...










The BOX continues to fascinate me...there is something that resonates with me....some affinity or symbolic association that I have yet to uncover....And like the truth, they sit patiently, waiting for you to come along and discover their secret....