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BOXES beyond borders

Category: Plastic

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.

Nest

My grandmother gave me a necklace with a mustard seed enclosed in plastic when I was a young girl. She told me about faith. Having faith in God, in life, in myself, and if I had faith the size of a mustard seed I would be all right. I remember her often, especially during hard times, when it is so hard to have faith; but, maybe, faith only has to be the size of a mustard seed.

The mustard seed is enclosed in resin, in a nest of words, from an old sacred book of poems about love and life, sitting on a spring…waiting.

Lettuce Revolution

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Alice Waters, OWNER, CHEZ PANISSE RESTAURANT AND CAFÉ; FOUNDER OF THE CHEZ PANISSE FOUNDATION, THE EDIBLE SCHOOLYARD PROJECT and Dianna Cohen, ARTIST

“We need a revolution, a delicious revolution, that will induce children — in a pleasurable way to think critically about what they eat.” Alice Waters

Within the Edible Schoolyard project, Alice is teaching us all by demonstration, that we are what we eat. She creates a sense of community and our interconnectedness. These are values that I hold high and attempt to eschew and embody in my work in a more formal way as compositions made up of disparate parts joined together to form a whole.

A box of stories

Artist from India

This is a box of stories- stories of how these women have inspired me, directly or indirectly. It is also full of ghosts-countless nameless/faceless other females who through their words or actions kindle our desire to tackle our Deepest Fears, prompt us to Brave the Wilderness or galvanize us into action. It is through them that I have learned to respect strength, not power; value the lotus-like ability to thrive in muddy waters and appreciate all that I have. Because I have so much… Most of all, I have the company of these brave souls.

Bringing all of my Life Experiences to the Public Table

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, CONGRESSWOMAN FROM CALIFORNIA and Laura Deem, ARTIST

Anna Eshoo’s life experiences have helped to shape her into the person she is today and the way that she represents her constituents in Congress. Her role as a parent, daughter, wife, student, teacher, woman, caretaker and friend have all come into play.

The handwritten slips of paper contain Anna’s private thoughts, memories and experiences. These personal topics feed into a “public table”. This public table is a communal meeting place that houses issues, projects and policies with which Anna Eshoo is involved as a Congresswoman.

The objects represent both the private and public world. Combined they weave together an individual narrative of the many hats that we wear, the experiences that accompany them, and the ones we chose to share with the rest of the world.

War Box

Since time began, mothers have nurtured, loved, taught, protected, cherished and raised their babies, then watched them grow to be killed in war or by war. This inevitable cycle will repeat itself for untold generations unless our mothers’ universal plea to Stop The Killing results in WAR NO MORE!

Untitled

Geometry:  To measure or survey the earth. A branch of mathematics that deals with the measurement, properties and relationships of points, lines, angles, surfaces and solids.

I decided that from these definition, to figuratively talk about the emptiness and its outer limits. The possibilities of connection and/or communication therein. Self-confinement and solitude. Intolerance.

My work is a product of my constant preoccupation about the quality of our lives. A continuous analysis and search of confrontation – questioning.

Therefore, in my work one should be able to see the structure, shape, feel the materials, and most importantly, the reason behind it.

A work that occupies at the same time a space and another more subjective one.

The analysis should not stop at the level of the elements that constitute my work, but should further try to see, or feel what links keep it together.

Those links give the various elements their true meaning, their reason to be and why they occupy such space in that order… and how they change in the mind of the viewer, thus becoming a silent accomplice of the artist.

Untitled

Geometry:  To measure or survey the earth. A branch of mathematics that deals with the measurement, properties and relationships of points, lines, angles, surfaces and solids.

I decided that from these definition, to figuratively talk about the emptiness and its outer limits. The possibilities of connection and/or communication therein. Self-confinement and solitude. Intolerance.

My work is a product of my constant preoccupation about the quality of our lives. A continuous analysis and search of confrontation – questioning.

Therefore, in my work one should be able to see the structure, shape, feel the materials, and most importantly, the reason behind it.

A work that occupies at the same time a space and another more subjective one.

The analysis should not stop at the level of the elements that constitute my work, but should further try to see, or feel what links keep it together.

Those links give the various elements their true meaning, their reason to be and why they occupy such space in that order… and how they change in the mind of the viewer, thus becoming a silent accomplice of the artist.

The Dream Boat

Once, I saw a fishing boat speeding through the waves of the sea. The foam beat against the sides of the boat and splashed up into the air. I watched the scene attentively and believed that the fisherman going to the sea in that boat must have brought with him a dream, a hope for a good haul of fish that day.

Remembering the scene, I have crafted a white model boat made from thin threads of white glue, which also create an illusion of foam floating in the air.  I name it The Dream Boat. I hope that in the near future there is no war, no famine, and that no one will suffer from poverty, children will enjoy more care and attention, women will receive  equal status and more recognition and that the deadly disease AIDS will be wiped out so that it would no longer destroy lives.

Those are my dreams and my boat is the vessel carrying those dreams along  for an everlasting world peace.

A Moroccan Bath

I have always been fascinated with texture. On my travels I photograph details in architecture and local objects which I then bring back to the studio and recreate on canvas. The paintings I show in my exhibitions revolve around the theme of texture, color and architecture. When I received the box, I was challenged with the sculptural object which turned into a base that used tile in various shades and was inspired by them for this particular project. To add a little humor, I added the bather relaxing with her arms in the air taking in the moment.
 

The Shape of Silence

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Dr. Sara Bunting, SILICON VALLEY INTERNIST and Tess Sinclair, ARTIST

“We hear the rain, but not the snow. A day well lived must know the shape of silence.” –K. Nerburn

Competent. Dedicated. Compassionate. Multitasking… Exhausted.

So many women from so many different circumstances live these words. Women are tenderly caring for those in their stead, watching and vigilant for sounds of an aching heart. Dr. Sara Bunting is one such woman. And she is tired.

Reclaiming time for recreation…re-creation and solitude is the task awaiting us. Take time to know the shape of silence.

Come on Breathe!

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Dolores Huerta, SOCIAL ACTIVIST, LABOR LEADER AND CO-FOUNDER OF UNITED FARM WORKERS

Grace Elizabeth Davis, WRITER, MOTHER AND MARATHON RUNNER

These trophies are awards to the plights that we face as women.

Dolores Huerta wanted to help her students who came to class barefoot and hungry. Through her community work she co-founded the United Farm Workers Union. At 76 years old she continues to lecture and lobby for the UFW, a model used by global labor unions as a testimony to the rights of workers.

Grace Davis, writer/runner/mother, known for “Katrina Relief” brought aid to the hurricane victims of New Orleans, the first to use blogging as a medium in disaster relief.

In our endeavors, our lives can be in danger, our pasts can haunt us, our vulnerabilities can be exposed.

Unselfishly, women strive to be all things to everyone; we endure the odds guided by our passion to care for our world families.

Map-Labyrinth

I opened the box’s door, I took off its top and I glued it to the bottom part to be a pedestal.  Then I painted the whole box in white and sealed it, following its shape with pieces of Plexiglas, on which appear (through the method of décollage that I have been using since 1974) fragmented images which constitute my labyrinths.  By this symbolic gesture of encasement and transparency, I hide away forever and protect the most precious feeling that remains buried at the bottom of this box since the time of Pandora;  Hope.

Tread Carefully

I have attempted to interpret the fragility of human nature, the openness and the trust which gradually closes from fear and self preservation. “Remember The Day Someone Gave You A Chance” is from a non violence poster, in it a lid had lifted from a jar and a butterfly flew free, free from fear, free to dream, to imagine, to love and to be loved.

Floating in My Void

I look at the space around and expand to the infinite
All my senses curve in delight as I grow in the vacuum of non-event
Non-happening, non-existence.
I occupy the blue vastness of my dreams and become
Fatherless, motherless, a virtual Non-Being.
A hole in the lining of man’s memory.
A mere flight of particles liberated from density.
A definite escape.
And in the pulsating silence, I finally lift Isis’ veil…

The Encrypted Future

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

PHYLLIS CAMBPBELL, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE SEATTLE FOUNDATION

Right angles are only made by human beings. And if one thinks of the ultimate object created, one is led to the computer and its binary innards.

The dots on the unpainted, rectangular box are like the zeroes and ones used to create software. The disks represent programs which have strategies for solving problems of all dimensions, from local to global levels.

The box is about hope in the computer, that it will be able to help humanity.

 

 

Copper Fish

A simple wooden chest, crudely decorated, is uncovered. What is inside? The lid is pried open to reveal the legendary Copper Fish floating in a sea of bubbles.

On the 25th of November 1922, the first stone was removed from the walls sealing the entrance to a pharaoh’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. Six years of painstaking archaeology work was rewarded by the discovery of wonderful and curious objects housed in an array of boxes. One can still imagine the thrill that the explorers felt.

The rediscovery of a forgotten or lost box never ceases to inspire curiosity and optimism.

 

New Beginnings

This is not a title of hope but one of irony. We all know that the lady who gets cut in half by the magician appears moments later gloriously grinning in one piece. The sword was real, the box solid, yet we are time and again puzzled by the discrepancy between what we see and what we know.

I have tried with this piece to convey that what we see and what we know is both illusion.

Although the Barbie-like woman, as a trickster, cheerfully saws herself in half, an extra pair of arms, pink and girlish appear like a last minute doubt to the saw. The last laugh and the first tear are closely connected.

 

Energy of Thought, Word and Deed

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Rita Ryder, PRESIDENT OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES, YWCA

Our sculpture represents the day-to-day work of the YWCA, providing hope and opportunity to women and families. Our ceramic hands represent our entire, diverse community joining together to help women and families overcome critical issues that undermine their lives: homelessness, poverty, domestic violence and unemployment.

Working together, we move women and families forward—breaking the cycle of poverty and hopelessness, and improving the quality of their lives.

What it Takes to Make Change: Sharifa Wilson and Transforming a City

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

Sharifa Wilson, FORMER MAYOR OF EAST PALO ALTO; COLLEGE TRACK DIRECTOR and Daisy Juliana Eneix, ARTIST

When I first spoke with Sharifa, the former Mayor of East Palo Alto, I was struck by her absolute faith in her ability to make change. “I consider myself an optimist” citing her family as her primary inspiration. As Sharifa went on to discuss the strategies she has used to bring money, businesses, jobs and better education opportunities into East Palo Alto, it became clear that persistence was something she didn’t think twice about.

While considering what I could do for an artwork about Sharifa, I thought about what a formidable force she was. A picture came to mind of some unsuspecting guy delivering her the “Sorry lady, that’s the way it is” line and what she would do with that. This artwork is about the refusal to accept that answer and the possibilities it opens.

 

A Sock and a Soap

In the pine box I placed a soap from the collection of ‘Human Body Smell’ soaps.  Over the box and the soap in it I pulled the inside out turned sock with some feathers sewed on it.  Both things I got in my studio where at the same time I work as a woman and live as a bird.

 

Pandora a Broken Myth

In doing this box I decided to see what the original myth of Pandora was. I was struck with the beauty and the imagery of Hesiod. I laughed at the obvious fear and envy that men have had at the creative female. I felt we could look at this myth and break it open and show women in all her creative force without fear or envy.

“as a favor to Zeus the father,
On this had been done much intricate work,
a wonder to look at:
wild animals, such as the mainland
and the sea also produce
in numbers, and he put many on,
the imitations of living
things that have voices, wonderful,
and it flashed in its beauty.
But when, to replace good,
he made this beautiful evil
thing, he led her out
where the rest of the gods and mortals
were, in the pride and glory
that the gray-eyed daughter of a great
father had given; wonder seized both immortals and mortals
as they gazed on this sheer deception.”

Hesiod translated by Richmond Lattimore

Fabricated Fame

Today’s celebrities seem to all be coming out of some celebrity machine.  Behind the glitz and glam, the expensive cars and fancy clothes, are producers and stylists that give celebrities their identities.  They all strive for the ideal image but in the process they become copies of each other.  I made my box into a gaudy, sparkly representation of fame.  I’ve carved in idealistic image of a figure into the lid of the box and created prints from it.  The prints show how celebrities are simply produced copies that are made to be this ideal.

 

A Mother’s Treasure

A Mother’s Treasure was created to depict an experience that women share in common– the love and nurturing of our children.  The symbol that came to my mind was baby teeth.  Every child in every culture sheds its first teeth, and everywhere mothers soothe and celebrate this rite of passage from babyhood to childhood.  Just as my two sons grew up and moved into their own adult lives, I give up my treasure  –  their saved baby teeth  –  to make a rattle to distract and amuse other babies in other places. Loving greetings to all the mothers and their young.

 

Welcome to La La Land

Culver City Highschool. Grade 11.

My box represents my life and being a high school student in a modern world, which is all crazy. I titled this piece Welcome To La La Land because my nickname is Lala and I wanted to show a glimpse of my life. Well, what I wanted to say about myself was that, I am a quiet person but inside I am crazy, confused and talkative, but I keep it locked inside most of the time. Inside, I put little things that represent me and keys, which is the thing that will open the box (myself). I see finding the keys is like finding you, the key that will open you to the world. I have little things that can’t remain in the box like my creativity, self-expression and friendship. I feel that most people are like me and until you find yourself, you can’t find the key that will help you open up and allow you to be more yourself.

The monarch trapped in their expectations, reducing the imperial ruler into a mere puppet controlled by golden strings.

The Women’s World

Mother Earth

Deep within her there is life.
She is encircled by the web of life.
It is no mistake that earth is a “she”
for all that grows does so because of her.
We are the children of this mother.
We are all connected to the earth and one another
through this mystical experience we call life.

Dreams of Dancing

Idee Levitan, an artist and patron of the arts, world traveler, lifelong philosophy student, adventure seeker, mountain climber, wife, friend, and proud member of a most independent sisterhood of polio survivors, died before she had the opportunity to work on the Women Beyond Borders project.  The virgin box was among the mementos Idee’s husband sent to me.  My dearest soulmate, Elena Mary Siff, invited me to create a tribute to Idee’s spirit so that Idee might be a part of an intriguing and profound exhibition she would have heartily embraced.  The Wheel Chair could not contain her Dreams of Dancing…

 

Shoes

“Walk a mile in my shoes”
and vice versa.
To understand someone else,
put yourself in their shoes.
Too often, women force their
feet into shoes
too small, too pointy, too high-heeled
and then stumble along
the unmarked roads ahead.
Life is a journey,
be prepared to wear
sensible shoes.

Surely Goodness…

This box has many references. One is biblical. “My cup runneth over” directly precedes my title from the 23rd Psalm, a thought that came to mind as I made it. It is also something like Pandora’s Box.

The surely goodness part is the outcome of both references that I mean and want for women. It is who we are and how we create and effect culture. This box stands over and beyond patriarchy.

It is also part of an ongoing project of mine to recycle into art all the many art materials I have been carrying with me for nearly 35 years with the fantasy: Someday I will make some crayon drawings again, or use this glitter in a piece! Now I am doing it as pure art materials, recycling as all things do back into life.

Peace Offering

Peace Offering is about seeing the angelic possibilities in our existence on the Earth, despite all adversity. It is so easy to forget that goodness is as real as horror when we are in the midst of difficulties. I hope that my offering to the Women Beyond Borders project will serve as a beacon to remind us of the beauty and light that is always within our reach.

 

Lost Butterflies

Where have all the mothers gone?
Off like butterflies in the wind.
All to great deeds of glory
Then on to new beginnings again.
The chrysalis of life is a never ending bond
Until the end of time.
Where have all the mothers gone?
Lost the most precious gift, a child of mine.

 

Outside In

Tajima Box Project. An artist and an extraordinary woman collaborate to create a box.

KATE MCISAAC ,1ST LIEUTENANT, U.S. ARMY and Laura Klein, ARTIST

Kate McIsaac just celebrated her 30th birthday in Baqubah, Iraq. She is a 1st Lieutenant in the Army, serving in OIF IV – V at FOB Warhorse as a postal officer. Her unit is from Long Beach, California.

She is also a first-year law student at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa and will either go into criminal law or First Amendment Libel law. Libel law is near and dear to her heart.

Kate also has a degree in Journalism and worked as a journalist for several years.

 

Celebrate the Meeting of Life…

I am attracted to the fine color of the dawn, sunbeams flickering through the leaves, broad colorful sunsets,  stars shining in the sky…the mysterious harmony of all these things, so this is what I try to make.

I love both light and darkness, and wish to celebrate the splendid harmony of their meeting. I hope opening this ‘box’ will lead you to see the harmony of light and darkness… and the meeting of you and me, or anyone.

Biological Baby Buggy

With my work I explore the theme of a woman’s fertility.  Fertility is a complex issue and fertility is not always a G-d given right.  Age and circumstances can exert enormous pressure on women to define themselves, to reach important decisions at what could be an inopportune time.

To embrace motherhood or to reject motherhood, or to gain motherhood through extreme and unusual means: are all fraught with their own assumptions and characterizations, either internally innate or imposed by external forces.

The tendency to define a woman by her ability to bear children is limiting and demeaning.  A woman must be defined by her ability to live a positive and meaningful life.

My quest is to honor all women who engage in creation whatever form it might take and encourage women to feel comfort and acceptance on many paths.

Welcome to the Forest of Dreams

I have built a place of healing and repose.
Though small enough to fit in your hand,
it is a place to soothe and comfort the weary sojourner.
May you enter and find your peace.

Enter the forest, its cool green breath,
its embracing boughs, its mystery.
Enter the shadows your spirit longs for,
follow the labyrinth.
Enter the heart of the ancient forest,
wander until the dusk surrounds you.
until you find you have come to a place of rest.
Dream until you have found contentment.
Dream until you have found your own way
home, into the light.

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.

The Power of Life

The difference between death and life…the immortal still rise from the grave and represent a strong life which is seen everywhere.  The freshness of the flowers differs from the quietness of the gray burnt tombstone, the dry and stained pieces of iron and even the spike tunnel where death is always near by.

Flowers still live and rise above all.

To Know People Outside

If I shut the lid tight, can anyone know for sure what it is in the box?  The outside of the box is decorated attractively as a person intentionally embellishes their appearance to conceal their inner life.  The ancient Vietnamese had a saying, “It is easy to know a man from his appearance, but difficult to recognize his thinking.”

Ear Sees, Eye Hears

This box, created by Magdalena Pederin, is actually the second box to bear its name. The original box was an interactive work that reacted to voices and other sounds around it with green and red LED diodes. The original box was unfortunately stolen, but when asked about her opinion on the situation Magdalena responded calmly. She said that the individual who took the work considered it a good one. She then suggested creating a new version of the box out of plexiglass, which became the box featured here.

Untitled

Irony rescues the idea from remaining in an abstract area so it can transform itself into fact, mobility, into continuous experience.  This is the basic idea behind my work.

Taking apart the governmental apparatus in which the situation of the woman is always in the background; the critical observation of the external is accompanied by the capacity of my own recognition.  Then the work surges from a free montage of connections of images and thoughts.

A Piece of My Heart

mary daley’s gyn/cology and wickedary

germaine greer’s the obstacle race

zora neale hurston’s their eyes were watching god

ruth klüger’s weiter leben: eine jugend

toni morrison’s playing in the dark

grace paley’s 3 short stories

adrianne rich’s of woman born

alice walker’s in search of our mother’s gardens

No Chains on My Feet

Inspired by Bob Marley’s concrete jungle. My box signifies the reality of life. Nobody is really free. There are restrictions, expectations, and guidelines on you, which don’t allow you to be free. People are fed lots of lies, been told things that sound good, just to keep them satisfied, but if you stop and really think your chains may be invisible, yet they’re present. You are never really free to be yourself. Life is captivity. The baby inside the box shows that the moment your life starts is the same point your freedom dies.

Dice of Life

Dice of Life represents the various facets of life and the decisions people have to make in life. The wire mesh box represents institutions in which we are governed by: society, family, government. The dice represents the different phases in life and the kinds of decision we have to make. We make decisions every day and for each decision, the outcome is unpredictable. Like throwing the dice, we do not know what the answer may be. Every decision is very crucial and often there is no turning back. But once decided, this decision will be carried out, maybe for the rest of our lives, or maybe part of our lives. Whether the outcome is good or bad, it is up to us to make something out of it. This work is personal for me as I was once a single working lady and had to make a sacrifice in order to have a family.

I Can See Beyond…

I Can See Beyond the Forest and Thru the Trees Now speaks for all modern women and will hopefully in the future. We no longer are tied to aprons, but represent a significant change in our roles, as mothers, policy makers and breadwinners. In the 60’s, we were underpaid as educators and had less chance to be  put into responsible position in life than our counterparts. We have come a long way in forming the framework for the future.

Think Local, Act Local

Santa Barbara focuses within its boundaries by caring for its people and environment, which causes a domino effect. The effect touches locally, but also worldwide. Santa Barbara is a jewel by the sea. Fishing is an integral part of the local economy. The sailing vessel made out the box exemplifies our location and the many wonderful sights and sounds that await tourists who touch our shores.

We “locals” touch the world community by our friendly hospitality and we offer tourists numerous and varied experiences to understand the American lifestyle. We care for ourselves, therefore we care for and respect others in all parts of the world. We have many organizations that support world-wide causes, such as Direct Relief International and Jean Michael Cousteau’s Heal the Ocean. We are seeking ways to maintain a homogenous community to assimilate all walks of life and when anyone encounters our beautiful city, he or she may also “think local and act local”.

Overflowing

As the world’s population increases at alarming rates, heavy human consumption is producing drastic amounts of waste and garbage. Landfills are overflowing and space for containing our trash is limited. This box represents Earth’s limited available space for containing our waste. By recycling, we can collectively help to prolong the Earth’s beautiful and natural elements.

America is Watching

The images on my box are from a series of relief prints in response to the U.S. Attorney General’s “TIPS” program. The program recommends that citizens keep an eye on one another and then inform the government of any suspicious activity. As disembodied doll eyes peer out from the inside of the box, images of men and women watching in various ways surround the exterior.

Make Up

The title, Make Up, is chosen as it refers not only to the cosmetics we women apply on our faces, but also to other connotations–to fabricate, to supplement, to collect, to put together, to parcel, to put into shape, and to arrange–all of which formed part of the process in its making. Make Up looks at the notion of wholeness with reference to the obsession in women to be or to be seen as psychologically and physically sufficient. The mirror on the top of the box reflects the viewer’s face, thus engaging/making him/her as a subject. Hence, the artwork questions a woman’s need and her behavior in wanting to “fit in” through the act of supplementing her appearance with cosmetics. Is the woman’s quest to Make Up her complete self destined to fail?

 

Life Beyond the Box

A heart that is closed within myself…
Fostered by the many changes of my life
What is Life Beyond the Box?
Nothing but a complicated colorful world.

The wooden box has been left to its original color to represent the simple me. The colorful nylon lines are communication lines between my community and me. The intensity of the lines on each side of the box symbolizes the importance of the communication level. Phrases have been inscribed onto the acrylic panels to reflect the views of Life.

The Ideal Women

The work challenges the notion of an ideal woman and our perception of a perfect appearance. The Ideal Woman exists today in various forms.  The construction of the ideal woman is constantly propagated by the media, mass culture and social standards.  Reconstruction with corrective surgery, Cyber-heroines modeled in the realm of virtual reality, Plastic dolls with envious 38″-18″-34″ dimensions are but just a few examples of what influences our conscious psyche.

The box presents a metal pedestal upon which women fixate the psychological image of an ideal woman.  The proliferation of body types littering the box illustrates the quest to attain the ideal image through various stages of her life.  The doll parodies a woman’s fixation with her own body and her quest to find the perfect body.  Swathed in slim-wrap, draped with a tape measure, the woman is never satisfied and the craving for the image of the ideal woman never stops.

So, pause!  What / who / where is the Ideal Woman?  A fiction of our imagination, mostly.

Granfaloon of 3

I adored my maternal grandmother and gave my daughter her name. Isabella. One day when my daughter was a tiny girl, she said to me, out of the blue, “Remember when I was the big lady and you were the little girl? Wasn’t  that fun?” It was fun.

Untitled

Survivors of Genocide.

I have drawn a volcano in eruption and fruits on a tray. I have also drawn a person in a boat. An active volcano is very destructive. Fruits are nutritious. If you take a ride in a boat you take a rest and feel happy when you look at the water.

An American Girl

Is there no greater suffering than “An American Girl, Shopping For A Husband”? In her single days, she would cry and cry over lost loves, covet the sacred purchases of keepsakes in hope for love, and dream endlessly for the one– a final purchase of the dream guy and live happily ever after.

Medium: The box, Ukranian egg dyes, silver and gold spray paint, floral wire, embroidery thread, wood ball, buttons and dominos, netting, yarn, plastic shopping bags, things girls buy, one groomsman cut in half, newspaper clipping, wire, crotchet needle, Modge Podge and Tacky glue.

Untitled

You may read and see,

But you can’t touch her.

You may look and sympathize,

But you can’t feel her pain.

You may think the wound is healed,

But you don’t know it stays forever.

She trusts to be loved and guarded,

And in return she got that.

She isolates herself from you

As her world is dark and lonely.

She is suffering behind that smile,

You don’t even realize it.

She is unable to accept the truth,

As it hurts to talk about it.

Listen now… “Why me!

I trusted him and this is the time when he RAPED me”

Eggies

Candy-like ovaries
Nibbling like berries
Sucking and squeezing
Pulling and pleasing
Contradiction and friction
Shiny, sweet eggs
Long skinny legs
Steel wire and red
Cold blue-purple and dead
Hot glue opaque blue
The barrier has become the existence
The chaotic shamble has become the resistance
Confine, restrict, disengage

A Strange Tricky Game

The little showcase represents nothing unusual in connection to museum life if it were not for the object on display missing. One becomes aware of many suggestions and clues on the object concerned.

Simple tape markings on the bottom of the case and the glass say: FRONT, BACK, ANOTHER, ONE. The signs are to be read from the inside, not from the outside, thus we can read the direction from the side from which we are just looking out the showcase. The rest of the directions remains to be read backwards. To imagine to be in the case does not stop irritation, because the pane says FRONT is not opposite of the one which says BACK. It is impossible to relate ONE-ANOTHER- BACK AND FRONT to a single central point. Wherever one is standing, in reality or in imagination, we are bound to arrange these terms in a systematic order related to the surrounding space.

This space has to be considered not only around the vanished object, that is, the inside of the showcase, but also the space all around the showcase.

A Strange Tricky Game: contradictory and meaningful.

Untitled

Before 1994, our country was good. After April ’94, blood was shed. Many people died and the majority of genocide survivors are struggling with life.

So, the telephone you see is calling for help. We believe that God is the first to come.
Inside the box, there is my heart. I will never forget my relatives, my friends, children’s blood…

The blue color means that I hope to live happily. Jesus will take me with him.

Fire

Fire is an important symbol in the Jewish culture. There are many passages in the Bible condemning pagan ritual sacrifices at altars in the forest, and extolling proper burnt sacrifices to the One God:

“…then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness with burnt offering…” (Psalm LI: 21)

There are many holidays in which fire plays an important part: Lag BaOmer, when bonfires are made as an echo of the signal fires lit against the Romans during the Bar Kochba rebellion; Hannuka, when the miracle of a lamp containing oil enough for a day burned for eight; the tradition of “soul candles,” which burn for 24 hours on the anniversary of the death of a close family member.

But perhaps the most constant and important fire in Judaism is the Sabbath candles, to be lit on Friday eve by every daughter of Israel. I see the Sabbath candles as a symbol of home and the woman’s duty and privilege to protect and care for her family, physically and spiritually.

My piece contains an unlit Sabbath candle to remind myself that no matter how much women expand our potential as human beings, the role of homemaker is a very profound commitment. It provides the foundation of faith upon which miracles can grow.

Bluebeard’s New Room

Continuation of the Bluebeard Legend:

In a crystal-clear night in February 1996, Bluebeard suddenly appeared in front of me and asked me to design for him a new and secret room which would no longer bring a woman misfortune, but would fan the flames of her yearning. I nodded assent and immediately started working. I built a blue-shimmering space out of mirrors and semi-translucent walls with numerous peepholes. Deep inside I enclosed my secret. I nailed tight the transparent entrance doors. In the pale light of morning, Bluebeard returns. In his curiosity he bent over the little box, — and then he dissolved in blue smoke. [Bluebeard’s Redemption]

Parir Me Quiero

My work is completely visceral. Each work or piece that I create is born from an experience or event that has marked my life. For me it holds the meaning of a ritual of celebration, offering, thankfulness or prayer. In this sense I believe that it is profoundly religious. It is my way of struggling with the world, of transforming myself into a “Cleansed One.*”

*Shamanic rite to remove the physical or spiritual evil from one’s person.

Personal Newspapers

Personal newspapers published 25 February 1998, is the only copy of this issue. By the time you see it, it will probably be old, illustrating how precious or meaningless yesterday’s news is.

Newspapers are like no other object in the world varying from necessity to inflation.

They are part of my project “The Exhibition of the local newspapers, 1994 – 1998”, which consists of indoor and outdoor exhibitions, and includes several authorial newspapers, created throughout Europe and the U.S.

Newspapers have always been only local, (authentic languages and interpretations), only their consequences can be interpreted globally.

Why?

The box, as a symbol of woman and one which will simulate a mother’s body. I will open and leave open so that my body is weightless and free. My face is protected by a condom, but not out of fear, because covered can also mean uncovered.

Limitation

Each restriction, each limitation is just like a coffin.

Don’t dance, don’t see, don’t speak, don’t do anything and
don’t be what you want to be. . .

Each restriction, each limitation which annihilates natural desires and wishes is like a coffin overwhelming the spirit.

Although all through history and in many educational and governmental systems these coffins have been made for men and women, women have always been more victims of these restrictions and limitations or confined to these coffins.

 

House Cleaning

We clean our house every day and throw the useless things away. But often our minds for years get filled with foolish thoughts and fears.

The Women's Voices: Jennifer Barton from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.