by lockwasher
These delightful Robots are all made from gathered bits and pieces in the workshop of Lockwasher.
As you can see, each one is a work of art and has a unique personality. Read the rest of this entry »
by Nancy S.M. Waldman
I have boxes on my mind.
This week, I covered a small cardboard box in old photos and gorgeous, vintage gold paper I found in my late father’s art supplies. I lined the inside with beads and feathers. Fun!
That little project got me going on containers. Now I’m working on making a box out of a couple of my paintings that have been in a drawer for a decade or more. In bed last night, just before sleep, I came up with an inspiration for a see-through lid so that the painting-lined interior won’t be hidden. This is fun stuff and all inspired by our recent issue on Alterations.
Our image today is from assemblage artist Mary Bogdan. You can see more of her work here in our on-going look at Alterations.
Mary collects boxes and more boxes to use in her constructs. This piece, entitled “scroll/reset” is 19″w x 14.5″h x 6″d. This is what she has written about it:
Religion, the meaning of life, spirituality as opposed to religion. These are the themes of many of my pieces. The New Testament with a rusty nail through it. FIT FOR LIFE (diet) book torn page by page and inserted one by one into a wooden box, the whole book stuffed as I have often stuffed myself. |
Well, Mary, I wish I could touch it, look in that cigar box, ruffle the pages. It’s so *FULL*.
I ran across a fun site yesterday called Box Doodles. Whoa, is this ever right down The PCQ’s alley. On this site, people are encouraged to make quick things out of boxes, but that hardly begins to describe the outcomes. Take a look. You won’t be sorry. The box doodles and Mary’s decidedly more sophisticated box assemblage can’t help but inspire!
Here are photos of the boxes I mentioned above. The first is a craft store box that I covered with vintage paper and old photos and lined with beads and feathers.
This one is literally made from one of my paintings (acrylic) bent into shape and glued. The lid is made from a web of machine-sewn threads (done on tissue paper and later removed) sewn onto more of the painting paper with embellishments of beads and lots more thread in the corners.
thanks, Mary.
See all our Alterations articles
See New Again, an Alterations Challenge
- with more photos of my boxes -
See more of Mary Bogdan’s art: The Tide Series
See all our Collecting articles and surveys
Originally published March 2006 in the Practically Creative blog; edited slightly for re-publication
The TIDE Series by artist, Mary Bogdan
All images copyright © 2003, Mary Bogdan; 12.125″h x 11.5″w x 6.5″d, mixed media on abandoned Tide laundry detergent box
All about this series in Mary’s own words:
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Mary - painter & assemblage artist - says of herself:
Mary and her husband, artist Sol Lang, were exhibited recently in New York City at the M!WAA @ NEW ART CENTER ; her images can be seen at flickr.com/photos/marybogdan/ |
Originally published in the January 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations
The following images were featured in the October 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: collections. Read the rest of this entry »
by Ben Shepard
Long ago
In a little boy far, far away… Read the rest of this entry »
complied and written by Nancy Waldman
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The metAphorism:
The Costume Box
The Lesson:
unplanned, unsorted accumulations are important sources of creative productivity
by Nancy S.M. Waldman
When I was a little girl, we had a big cardboard box in the closet that held anything that could be thought of as “costume.” Never sorted through, never planned, it looked only like an unholy mess. Feathers and ribbons. Fabric to drape and pin. Hand-me-downs and hand-offs from relatives that could never be used in real life. A rabbit-fur muff. A fox stole. A “gypsy” skirt made from horizontal rows of brightly contrasting fabric. There was an evening bag that would bring hundreds on E-bay today. Clip-on earrings without mates. Belts. Beads. Broken things. Unlikely bits of felt and plastic and leather and cotton and wire and pipe cleaners.
The specifics are less prominent in my mind all these years later than the enticing assortment and variety of things.
It was used, of course, at Halloween to devise costumes which were never store-bought. While we sometimes had help from our creative parents, we often came up with our own creations right out of the Costume Box. The other major use was for the garage musicals that my sister, Suze and I put on regularly for fame and profit. Suze was the creative genius behind “Dance through the Centuries” and many others. One was carried out entirely on roller skates (must have been where Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber got the idea). The Costume Box provided the raw materials for transforming us into stage-ready performers.
When I had children, it was second-nature for me to have a box that I threw things into to form their own Costume Box. One summer we rented a condo on the beach with another family. There were five boys in all and I took the Costume Box along, hoping it would provide some entertainment if it rained the whole week. One evening the adults were sitting outside with other people from the condos and our boys came down dressed as characters from Star Wars. Even though there were no store-bought costumes in the box, we watched in amazement as they trooped down in identifiable personages. “There’s Darth Vader!” a child exclaimed. “Oh look! He’s a Stormtrooper!” said an adult. There they were: BobaFet, R2D2, Chewbacca.
It’s truly stunning what our imaginations can do with almost nothing.
None of us became professional performers or costume designers, but the creations that adorned us out of the Costume Boxes had a lasting effect nonetheless. When you have had the experience of making something new out of old cast-offs you remember it forever. It’s not only fun, it’s creative confidence-building in a box.
So when you think about creativity, remember the Costume Box. Don’t let those clutter-clearing shows on TV make you feel too guilty about your accumulation of stuff. Junk drawers, untidy tool sheds, archivist attics, overflowing garages, toy and costume boxes provide raw materials for creative productivity.
Originally published in the October 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: collecting
© 2005 - 2007 all rights reserved
Soy, in ad-dressing collections, we mustard somewhere and honey, you are going to relish this! Mayo we introduce you to a tiny taste of Chris Harne’s astounding preserve of close to 700 flexible portion-control Condiment Packets
…sweet, hot and saucy, eh?
