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BOXES beyond borders

Category: Wax

One Thousand Years of Sewing into the Night

My grandmother’s sewing box, a gift from her mother, handed down to me by my mother, is my inspiration for Women beyond borders. I have made a tiny sarcophagus of pins, cotton and frayed red velvet – to symbolize thousands of droplets of blood from pin-pricked fingers – all embedded in the wax of candles burned into the night, lighting women’s often unappreciated work of skill, toil and pleasure.

 

Life Cycle

The leaves will dry up and grow old
The child will grow blood

The aging of the leaves represents the worry women have about growing old, but they are beautiful and they remain beautiful as they change.

Blood is also thought of as negative, but it is within us all- man, too. We have it to remind us of children every month. The hope in the future, despite change, children are precious jewels.

Permanent Love

“Love’s over brimming mystery joins life and death.”              Tagore

In former times, Romeo and Juliet could not remain together, and were willing to die side by side. In recent days, the modern Romeo and Juliet ran from the Bosnian siege, also dying side by side. How many such unhappy love stories are there over the world?

I believe in destiny. I make this box as a coffin, with the wish that it is the house of girls and boys, women and men who love one another, yet are not able to become man and wife. This box is a love coffin for Permanent Love.

Men and women in love, whether old or young, may die, but their love still remains, it never dies.  They will lie in the same coffin, and pray to live together in many future lives.

Restoration

In Christian vocabulary, the term restoration means bringing oneself back to God who created the earth; saved from darkness; beings in the light; and bringing blessing to this world. This work, by a small community is an offering to the Almighty Highest in the first year of the twenty-first Century. Participants of this community came together to pray for needs that they observed from the mass media. This community and the artist share one faith and believe in the same God. The Box thus represents their prayers which are burdened with the sorrows of history and which brings hope to the future. It is likened to a funeral of sacred history and a birthday party of the new history makers.

 

Endless Beauty

My work deals with the femininity of a woman, as she struggles not only to be part of society’s work force, but also to maintain her appearance as changes are brought about through aging.  Instead of the small wooden box, I have cast a larger box from wax, not only to enhance its appearance but also to give that sense of being alive.  The box itself is wrapped up with skin and it is this same skin that are stacked inside the box in repetitive folds.  The wrapped box together with the folded repetitive skin represents the struggles of a modern woman in the community, to which she has, to balance between society and the family, and yet maintain her >endless beauty for society.

Tentacles

Different lengths of ultra thin fishing wires with little wax-ends springing out from a pot of wax and resin, invite views to touch, shift, bend, change direction or distort. This work exemplifies the notion of interference, and seeks to actively engage the viewers to participate with the artwork to draw their own unique experiences from it. This activity will allow the development of patterns of collective creativity that does not merely privilege any one person’s experience.

Celebration

My box is a celebration of the joy of life, magic and imagination. I used the red part of the cardboard and some of the words found on the carton the words joy and oz., referring to the Wizard of Oz, and Coke. I cut the cardboard in the manner of Matisse with shapes of women dancing.

I teach eight art classes at four different colleges, sixty hours a week including driving time. Needless to say, I have little time to stop for a meal. So when my blood sugar starts to drop, I have a Coke. There is nothing like it–the two major food groups of sugar and caffeine. Coca Cola gives me a lift and makes me feel good.

 

Family

This altar is dedicated to my boys, Shawn and Josh, two beautiful people who I cherish. Between the little dots in the photos are images of them surfing in Mexico. The inside of the box and the top of the box have surf “sex wax” melted, hardened and enclosed in resin. The wax will turn to liquid when it gets hot and change its shape when it dries. I like that.

Grief Repair

All is metaphor, even that which we may take as fact. Human logic is fragile. The box may represent a construct of human logic. Boxes do not occur in nature. It contains wax with the translucency of human skin, threads, a needle and blood. The needle under the “skin” is a metaphor for the grief of women all over the world in their efforts to keep love and the grace of human relationships and community whole, despite a world which seems eternally based on war and conflict. The needle is used for healing. The box is a prayer for continued courage and creativity.

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.

Time Capsule

The objective of the project is to approach women of all ages, from all walks of life and of different nationalities, to express their views about what it means to be a woman in this age and time.

They were asked to express their concerns, worries, happiness or grouses, et cetera; basically, any subject that touches their lives and how their lives are affected as a result.

These expressions are kept in the Wbb box which is the Time Capsule.

It will be sealed for now, and it carries an instruction for the curator of Wbb permanent collection to open it fifty years later on 8 January 2051.