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BOXES beyond borders

Category: Craft

A Piggy’s Dream

Deep and sound asleep in the dark night.

Covered with the colours of black, red, and gold of security.

Mother said, “It’s a guarantee. Sleep. Sleep. adorable little baby.”

Sailing, sweet sleep little piggy
Even inside the dark box

Safe and sound asleep in the dream with guarantee of smiling

Sweet sleep
With beauty and good health guarantee.

MY Life AND MY Lesson

Artist from Canada

This is La Benida Hui’s box, broken into pieces representing her “Life’s Lesson” by a hanging mobile. The Center is her art table and art tools, hanging from this space is the root of all things; Love.

On one end is the Ocean, made into a cross-like form; standing for the sacrifice of our home planet and our health at our own hands through climate change and pollution.

On the opposite end is The Green where nature items are bound together intertwined with Indigenous patterns. Symbols of whales and butterflies represent Life, Beauty and Rebirth.

Garden of Courage…

Where the
Seeds breakthrough
From breakdown.

Seasons are the reasons…

Nothing, nothing was an accident, everything was meant to
Happen.

Garden of Courage, seeds planted, tribes gathered, beautiful friendships blooming…

The “Formosa Tales” box project has allowed me to see the courage within, I am inspired by many with the sharing circles, and the boxes created… women of different backgrounds coming together having a much-needed conversation, the power of connection creates the possibility for transformation …It is my hope that with each box, every place we go, the seeds of courage would be planted, our collective vibration for the greater good, to be the courage; strength continues to blossom…

This little wooden box
What brings is unlimited possibilities…
In sharing and listening, the bravery of the exhibitors touched me… let me see the beauty of my bravery and vitality again. How to open the chat box in my heart, and what is worth cherishing… That is really an art. This garden bloomed in the third version. It is my expectation. What the treasure island chatterbox can plant on this beautiful island is full of hope, full of long-term prospects, abundant flowers and good fruits everywhere.

The Love Seat

Artist from USA

A cozy and happy place, this Love Seat. Challenging the traditional appearance of your typical living room chair, fireworks and “power red” fabric make for a bold, yet celebratory, place to sit.

The inconsistent pattern mimics the reality of our own inconsistent lives – as women and people – but appearing upon a strong piece of furniture reminds us we are still safe and stable. Individual black and white buttons remind us that everyone, regardless of color, is invited and welcome, while a single ruffle-edged pillow adds a touch of “feminine”.

Thank You!

Bali Spirit

The box is covered in a black and white check cloth which together with the red thread gives us the following: red, white and black, together with a Chinese coin as used in balinese traditions.

The significance is:

The cloth covering the box is a symbol of this world in which there are always two opposites, for example: day/night; good/evil; rich/poor; etc.

The round coin with a hole signifies that life is never ending and the world is always turning.

The three colours represent the three great Gods called “have the meaning: dengan adanya TRI MURTI. Each of these three Gods have their own characteristics, which are:

– Dewa Brahma is represented by fire which is a creative force. Everything in nature is represented by the red colour.

– Dewa Wisnu the God of water, protects the contents of our natural world and His colour is black

– Dewa Siwa, the Wind, is the Destroyer, whose colour is white.

 

Crafty Contemporaries

This box symbolizes the entrapment of the domestic sphere. The witness of the box symbolizes the innocence and naiveté of women in the past. The sewing kit placed in the box makes reference to contemporary women artists of today who have used old skills from the domestic sphere and given them new life.

 

Knitting Machine for a Woolen Cord

My work is full of allusions to the ‘female’ element, mythology and cordicraft. Wool thread is the main material in my ‘knitted sculptures.’ The box contains a small knitting machine and a small bobbin of wool thread. This is a traditional way of making a cord, and anyone can continue the process of knitting. It is like a trip, a memory, but the tip of the thread must remain in the box.

What the Women Gave Me

The making of this second box afforded me the opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the many wonderful and precious things given to me by women; artists friends colleagues, and strangers whom I will never meet, who share like souls…

To the Ngarrindjeri*  Woman who taught me how to weave, and gave me a part of her culture…

To the Women who nurtured and encouraged my talents and refused to let me give up…

To the communities of Women who have taken part in Women Beyond Borders…

Thank you.

* Ngarrindjeri (pronounced narr-ind-jerri), people are indigenous Australians, originally from South Australia.  These people traditionally wove to make traps and baskets in which to gather, store and carry their food and bury their dead.  Today few Ngarrindjeri know how to weave.

 

The Women's Voices: Diana Robson from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.

Souvenir From Hawaii

I have covered the surface of this box with pieces of plastic found on a beach in Hawaii in 1993.

On one hand, I saw all this plastic as evidence of the persistence of this detritus of capitalism’s endless appetite for more THINGS; on the other, I was struck by the weathering of these ambiguous fragments as they begin to resemble organic flotsam and jetsam.

The categorizing of things washed up like this becomes more difficult and the beach becomes a shifting archeological site of displaced artifacts (or garbage) driven by the tides. Presumably, eventually these things break down into a kind of synthetic sand.

Kristine’s Hope Chest

The central character in this visual story is the Hope Chest.  I play a secondary role and I am represented here by the paper mache figure with the hole in her soul and an exposed heart.  The setting “Life” is a jigsaw puzzle piece cut from a chess board.

The first things to be taken out of the chest are my sketchbook and pencil.  There are three other items on the board and they symbolize external influences that always shadow my moves.

The contents of the chest are: two teddy bears, a doll, a key, a warm knitted blanket, a couple of books, paintings (my work and that of others), pencils, a tin angel and bits of coloured wire.  All these items are needed by this nest builder to turn a room or apartment into HOME.

The colourful tin angel was given by a friend, here it means friendships and friends who are sometimes angels.

The colourful curly corkscrew bits of wire are the wonder and amazement that I carry around with me.

On the inside of the lid is a rejection notice from the New Yorker Magazine, and a letter written by my granny when she was 65.  She lived and died in Latvia.  She learned enough English to cobble together a now cherished letter to her 10 year old granddaughter.

I write a lot of letters and the stamps are the decals from my travels by mail.

We’re All in this Boat Together

I work with containers because they make me happy. Each piece I create becomes a container of conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings: a nest, a womb, a secret, a surprise or a giggle. And always, a feeling of being in touch with my female ancestral beginnings.

My containers contain “me”. Being a wife, mother and “Nana” have been the most important things in my life. My baskets honor and celebrate the family. I use words and images of women and children because I want my basket/vessel to have content…to say something. I want to validate the importance of the family and the values and morals it nurtures. My vessels are autobiographical and are the scrapbooks of my life.

Throughout history women have found creative time in their lives to make baskets. Knotless netting, the technique I use to cover the gourds and molded forms, is an ancient, tedious, continuous thread technique that is used for nets, baskets and button holes and is symbolic of women’s work in the home.

 

Made By Woman

Although it is very difficult for me to think in the terms of ‘feminist’ art (or any kind of separation between the men- women activities), I can’t avoid the context of the Women Beyond Borders project. So I created the double box out of the single one. What inspired me was the fact found in the catalogue that the original wooden boxes had been constructed by a man (called Jack). Inside this wooden box I have put the soft textile box sewn by myself.

The work corresponds with the pattern of sharing the work: men build houses while women make home of them. Such a box is still staying empty, waiting for a real (probably common) issue. Besides this, I simply enjoy sewing.

REFERENCES:

Joseph Beuys: felt textile

United Colors of Benetton: bright colors, social dimension of dressing

‘Titanic,’ the movie: Jack & Rose relationship

My past works: ‘Portable Home’ project

Just A Tear

The box: the everyday object is used in different ways. It is taken out of its specific context in order to become an object that is artistic, cultured, of utilitarian adornment.

In this case the change is taken from a philosophical, conceptual foundation. To accept this transformation from a common, everyday object for purposes of exhibition, it is necessary to take on the challenge of new shapes and ideas, to comprehend their true structure in order to give it symbolism and a distinct visual representation: a confrontation between form and action, between reality and idea. This is to say, the object must be viewed from another angle in order to break the established canons. This shall be the philosophical stance for my work.

My subject is tears. I began with an incision between the warmth and gentleness of the wood sharply contrasted against the rigidity and coldness of the metal exterior, in order to place, in its delicate interior, a tear.

Tears are shed daily; they are commonplace and become relics when taken out of their context, just as the crusaders brought back relics from the Holy Land: pieces from the cross, from the crown of thorns, from the robe, from the nails. These amulets, upon being sacrificed, acquire properties of protection for those who hold them.

This syncretism happens in the Americas, lands which we carry deep within ourselves from the cultures of our origin and the influence of the Christian religion brought over by the Europeans.