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BOXES beyond borders

Category: Children

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.

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!

The Little Engine That Could

When I received the box I thought, “Why me? I’m not an artist”, but the box itself intrigued me.  I loved its fragrance, its smooth lines and the fact that it could hold my secrets or be open with the story I wanted to tell.  Almost immediately, the box became a train for me.

Growing up in Denmark I was very familiar with fairy tales, and I thought the train would become part of my own fairy tale. But as I worked on the train, it took on the intensity of the American children’s book, The Little Engine That Could.

I came to the United States when I was twenty-one years old with the dream in my heart that I could start my life over again. And I could. And I did. I am a wife to a wonderful husband, I have two beautiful grown children who love me. After years as a psychotherapist and consultant, I decided to become a toffee maker. It gives me great joy to create something sweet that brings joy to so many people.

After the train was finished I was on board as The Queen of Toffee, waving to the crowd. I was right back in my Danish fairy tale where I had started out, and I think I’ll stay there.
 

Grass Roots

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

Judy Kleinberg, MAYOR OF PALO ALTO and Sharon Chinen, ARTIST.

The mayor’s interest in growing a healthy community is represented in the roots of this piece. The box is filled with the soil of Palo Alto, laid down as a rich foundation for the small red berries which represent the children of Palo Alto and education…two passions of Mayor Kleinberg. Our roles as women, teachers, caregivers, leaders — the flourishing community of which we are all a part — is finally represented by the blossoming trees that reach out to the world at large.

Hope Chest

If wishes were horses, then little girls would ride… we bind ourselves with chains of obligations, decorate our selves with symbols of the things we cherish, the very things that tie us to life and yet keep us from our frivolous dreams.

The Wells of the Virgins

The mysteries of Eleusis, is the theme I have been working on since 1992.  It is about a long research I have been doing on forgotten rites and their symbolism.  An endeavor based on the writings of ancients and also of contemporaries on Greek art. The fertility of the earth-womb and children’s tomb symbolized by the well, which encloses the water of life, the water that purifies, but also fecunds, is inseparable from the earth.  The archetypal image of the mother/daughter, Demeter and Persephone as identical characters.  As well as Persephone’s ravishment by Hades, refers to the sexual act and to marriage.  Finally, its descent and raising represent death and resurrection.  Always assumed, the unknown rites have to be imagined…

Love

My aim was to transform the cold sterile box, by covering it and filling it with love.

On the outside: What could be richer and warmer than a mothers love for her new baby?

On the inside: What could be lighter and brighter than the spiritual love awakened at time of birth?

Woman in Bloom

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

Deanna Oppenheimer, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF RETAIL BANKING, BARCLAYS BANK

Wife

Mother

Mentor

Water-skier

Senior Appointed Chief Operating Officer Barclays Bank, United Kingdom

Chair of the Board of Trustees, University of Puget Sound

“Of all my accomplishments, what I am most proud of is my children, that they are growing up to be fine individuals.”

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

Revelation

“To laugh often
and much, to win
the respect of
intelligent people
and the affection
of children, to earn
the appreciation
of honest critics
and endure the
betrayal of false
friends, to
appreciate beauty,
to find the best
in others,

to leave the world
a bit better, whether
by a healthy child,
a garden patch…
to know even one
life has breathed
easier because
you have lived.
This is to have
succeeded!”

-Emerson

Love Death

Loves Me – Loves Me Not

To be loved by the person one loves is everyone’s dream. It is a simple and obvious feeling, yet often pregnant with anxiety. Am I really loved by the one I love? To answer this question many people – or at least young girls – have picked daisies in the summer and plucked the petals to get an intimation of fate’s understanding of the other’s feelings.

That love is not a simple matter is, perhaps, one of our earliest lessons. We must hope that the daisy petals have not been disruptive of health or future. But in former times it was common to try to influence one’s love-life with various herbs. In his anthology Om Folkmedicinens Lakeorter. (Medicinal Herbs in Popular Medicine- 1981), Matts Bergmark has listed plants that are aphrodisiacs, as well as otherwise beneficial. The Valerian root has, for many centuries, been connected with many properties. Its French name is guerit tout, cure all, and in Egyptian mythology it was connected with the cat family and the subject of special worship. In Norse mythology Valerian was connected with Freja. It was an ingredient in aphrodisiacs and, with Mistletoe, was considered to further fertility.

But if fertility has been sought, the fear of giving birth to an unwanted child has been all the stronger. Juniperus Sabina, a relation of the Juniper, is filled with volatile oil in its branches and has gained its name, Sabina, from the Sabine people who lived near to Rome. A decoction of Juniperus Sabina  was widely used as an abortifacient. But if the fetus died the mother frequently followed it into the realm of death. For a mere six drops of the ether sufficed for an overdose leading to a painfully slow death.

Bound – Unbound

“The child’s foot doesn’t know yet that it’s a foot,
And wants to be a butterfly or an apple.

But then stones and pieces of glass,
Streets, ladders
And the paths of the hard earth
Go on teaching the foot that it can’t fly,
That it can’t be a round fruit on a branch.
The child’s foot then was overcome, it fell
In the battle,
was a prisoner,
condemned to live in a shoe.”

From To the Foot from Its Child

By Pablo Neruda

Face

Soon after the birth of my first child, I became aware of a sense that on a grander scale, all children were my children. Universal.

I am now a grandmother for the first time. Mostly, I am happy. Sometimes I feel sad, maybe a bit jealous because I no longer carry the egg that becomes the baby. Look at my little grandson in utero. He is perfect, just like the one perfect living cell, the egg. What gift this is that we may, “…bring forth those who bring forth.”

Singapore Sling

My box sculpture represents my past and my hopes and dreams for the future.  Now I am caught in the middle as I work in Singapore as a domestic help.

It is the thought of my children back home in the Philippines (that’s why their picture is here) and my dream of having my own restaurant in Manila that keeps me going.

Mom, Me, and the Pink Dancers

This work has to do with the cycle of life and where I am in that cycle now. It is a combination of fears–past and present, traumatic experiences—past and present, hopes, dreams, pain and frustration that continue, that I am more or less resigned to endure. It is to honor my mother and her teaching and love for me, my love for her and what each generation of women pass to one another.

The pink dancers were an image I formed from an interview I heard on public radio with young women activists who dress in pink and perform on the sidewalk of urban centers to attract people to engage them in discussions pertaining to social and political issues of the progressive left. I yearned and regretted for a moment that I was not there, was not a pink dancer. But soon saw that they were the next phase, and was glad just that they were there. Yes! to them.

War is still bad, starving children are still bad, and women still have to keep working to stop these things from happening. There is a lot of pain we must carry with us.

My own children (17yrs old & 21yrs old) saw this piece being made. The red stuffing, I told my questioning son, represented blood and tissue. However, it was not bad. Blood is everywhere when you are born. It is a good thing. Blood is life.

Such a small piece, so much to say. Very personal.

Family Bed

I’m three years old. I made a five-decker bed because I want my family to be together. My papa works in Jakarta four days a week and I miss him. I also love double-decker beds but papa said it is too dangerous for children my age. A five-decker bed will be nice–everybody can sleep together and Babybathtub (my doll) can have her own bed. I wanted to have a five-decker bed and mama helped me saw the box. Papa is very old, his bed has many beads–my hands get tired and Nadene che che helped me with the sticking. My bed has three beads because I am three years old and Babybathtub is only two.

Pat Chen, Regina Law’s mother

Creation

This piece of art represents a woman with a steadfast and proud posture. She sits and carries in her lap the continuity of life: her own children. Her face reads of dignity. She carries on her head a pot with a dove: the symbol of love and peace. She creates and conveys life, pride and peace.
 
Medium: clay mixed with copper oxide, cobalt oxide, magnesium oxide, iron oxide and some kaolin as well as a wooden box

Coca-Cola Wind Chime

Coca-Cola Box Project.

As a child actor, Kelsey was in an ad for Coca-Cola when she was ten years old. The set was designed to look like a tree house. Kelsey was dressed as a tomboy and just wanted to hang out with the boys who were sitting around a table in the tree house drinking glass bottles of Coca-Cola. With longing, Kelsey was pictured peeking at the boys as they enjoyed Coca-Cola.

Leaving Home

from the time my soft head crowned
through the red hole
and my mother’s spent muscles squeezed me
out of the watery place,
i began leaving home.
the empty tunnel that led me
from my first home
closed up and healed.
as i grew, i sloughed off years
like discarded snakeskin.
she saved the skins.
she wears them around memory’s neck,
to mark time to the cadence of
an ancient song
her mother’s mother’s mother once sang.

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.

Hidden Beauty

Real beauty is hidden and then found like a box of treasures. These textiles represent women from different regions of my country. A heritage that should be preserved for our children.

The words on the box are prayers: to make good choices; be a better person – humble, patient and thankful.

Beatrice’s Box – A Coffin

The figures on the top represent her husband and four children who were all murdered during the genocide. She had to (forced) watch, as her husband was hacked into four or five pieces. Overwhelmed with tears, she could not go any further.
Note the small red heart on the side.