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.

I began noticing vagrant TIDE boxes all over the city (Montreal)… in the recycle bins and in garbages on Recycle Bin Day and/or Garbage Day. They stood out so vividly among the green plastic bin containers and the garbage bags thrown out on the streets of our neighborhoods. They were so compelling to me: “TAKE ME HOME”, that I began stopping my car wherever I was and no matter where I was going and picking them up. They were usually in perfect condition… empty. They are very sturdy, having to hold all our laundry detergent for generations… never changing its look very much… just an upgrading of graphics now and then over the years (first introduced in ‘46).

I fell in love with them… they spoke to me of wash day Mondays… motherhood, family… cleanliness (is next to godliness). Andy Warhol (with a twist)… I held on to them for a long while, enjoying their beauty. I started to paint them…. giving them different personalities… different interiors.

Each Tide box contains a smaller box/bag inside.. way at the bottom… a precious gift.. a secret hiding place…

But… this is all a GREAT SEDUCTION…. Yes, making a “cultural icon” from something that is a destructive force, is alarming…. and so my vision of these tide boxes has evoked and touched something in all of us… beyond what was originally intended.

This is art….and ART IS THE CONSCIENCE OF HUMANITY. Obviously, what comes to mind is our notion of what is “safe” and “pure” (from our childhood) turning out to be a “danger” to us and our environment. We have come to adulthood now and are seeing the consequenses of our (and past generation’s) ignorance.

It’s a very powerful issue, that touches all of us and for generations to come. We have been working under the assumption that all is “good” in life in the choices we make or have made in the past. And we aren’t necessarily aware of the dangers that lie underneath…… “Buyer Beware”.It is the responsibility of the artist to provoke… and engage.

I am a “glaneuse”, a gleaner… In scrap heaps of abandoned or demolished buildings, alleyways and flea markets, I find rare treasure. Garbage. Remnants of wood and metal, books, boxes, old paintings, all that have been discarded are interesting to me. My work deals with obsolescence. Each “found” object has out-lived its time and has therefore been scrapped. Dead. I rescue and assemble them with collected items from my own past. I sense the object’s energy guiding its reincarnation to a higher purpose. Art. These artifacts that have chosen me, tell stories of where they have been, where I have been, where I am and where I am going. Stories of passion and anger, strength and weakness, love, hate and fear. Revealing me to me.

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/