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BOXES beyond borders

Category: Design

Beyond Bounds and Borders

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

Barbro Sachs-Osher, CONSUL GENERAL OF SWEDEN IN SAN FRANCISCO, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD FOR THE BERNARD OSHER FOUNDATION and Ulla de Larios, ARTIST

This box honors Barbro Sachs-Osher whose generosity goes beyond bounds and borders.

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.

 

 

Shoe Box

Shoes are also an important artistic expression for me. You see, as a walker, shoes are to me what cars are for others. They transport us from where we are to where we want to be.

The first box in my Women beyond borders series, represented women as guardians of the treasure within. “The Guardians R Us” 1996.

Now, the third box in my series releases part of its contents. The missing shoe mate and box top travel to Europe, entitled “Left Shoe Looking For Right” 1999.

Additional boxes by same artist

A Cricket

I used to think, in my childhood, if the wonder and beauty of flowers I see is the same as the one my playmate sees. Though I regard their color as ‘yellow’ and so does she, can our ‘yellow’ be the same?

When you see an object, you see not only it itself, but also some experience and memory which you picture to yourself by seeing it. If the brightness you see is different from one I see, and if so, are the views, the climate and the smells you have seen and sensed also different? This work of mine you’re looking at may be different from the way I see it.

But such a difference can make our lives more complicated and richer and reveal who we are.

Al Cuore del Cuor

My connection and admiration for my fellow women grow ever stronger as I grow older. This was to have been the theme of my box.

My father died in my arms a short while ago, calling “Mama.” How varied, how interchangeable, how understanding of the incomprehensible we must be. How I strive to trust my instinct that taps deep, deep, deep into the strength, the capacity, the tenacity of a woman.

My box is for my father, whom I miss with all my hearts. He was a painter, he taught me to see.

Untitled #1

Top: the 3 jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings) and the Sangha (spiritual community)

Color: yellow for the Lama’s robes

Images: lotus flower, 3 jewels with Bon swastika (Bon was the religion of Tibet before Buddhism), fish, vase with flowers

Inside the Box: barley

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.

Untitled

Blue skies, sun rises, sun sets.

Very quickly, you leave us

Like a bow leaving it’s arrow.

We stay.  It’s good to stay.

Our future is good.

Top: flower

Images: Knot of eternity, eight-petaled flower, Bon swastika, 3 jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings) and the Sangha (spiritual community), sun, moon, flowers

Inside the Box: Kata (white scarf used as offering to Lamas or enlightened people)

Text: World Peace

Blue sky, sun rises, sun sets.

Very quickly, you leave us

Like a bow leaving it’s arrow.

We stay.  It’s good to stay.

Our future is good.

96 and 4 Extra

The negative space inside the box is able to contain 96 cubic centimeters of particles. If more particles are added, the pressure inside the box will increase. When the box is opened, the pressure will push the extra particles out. A similar reaction will happen to a human being who experiences physical and mental pressures. When the society, culture and family exert pressure on a woman, she faces physical and mental exhaustion, thus making her unhappy. But if she is able to release the stress, the force can be transformed into useful energy–just like the box, she can live a colorful and creative life.

The Bridal Chest

Sanduq Al-Saysum is a type of chest which used to be carved by craftsmen in the Holy City of Makkah (Mecca) from hard wood and decorated with pierced brass. Traditionally, these were one of the prized possessions of a bride which she brought with her to her new home. Being large and very heavy, they were used as safes.  Inside were kept valuables and family heirlooms. Even though few now live in the traditional homes, Saysum chests are still to be found in many modern homes.

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.

 

A Chinese Bridal Chest

In ancient China the mother of the bride had to give her daughter two chests of clothes on her wedding day to accompany the bride when she went to the bride-groom’s home.  The two words ‘Double Happiness’ had to be pasted on the two chests.  These beautiful decorated rectangular chests would be carried manually behind the bridal sedan chair followed by a group of musicians.  These chests would be supported by long poles placed on the shoulders of the two male carriers.  On arrival at the bride-groom’s home the mother-in-law and other relatives would inspect the contents of the two chests.  Then the bride’s family background would be assessed or usually criticized because of the poor quality of the clothes in the chests.  How the mother-in-law would treat her daughter in future would depend to a great extent on so called ‘dowry’ of the bride.

Untitled

Top: the 3 jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (teaching) and the Sangha (spiritual community)

Colors: monastery

Images: goldfish, land, mountains, river, clouds; an island surrounded by water; fruit

Inside the box: barley, primary ingredient of Tsampa, a basic Tibetan food