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BOXES beyond borders

Tag: Metal

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.

The Dance of Life

Artist from India

The box represents the oceans and earth, embellished with the symbol Om; this is the sound of our breath or Pranava. Inside, gold dust is the precious earth we must cherish, upon which Natraj, the Lord of Dance, dances the dance of life. On the lid, is Hukam हुकम.

I seek the blessings of the Tibetan prayer flags, the vibrational frequency of Om, and the sheer liberation of Hukum (surrender) to continue this dance with intention and purpose. The Tibetan flags carry our prayers via the wind to get them answered. The flags represent the five elements. White flags symbolize clouds, red for fire, green for water, yellow for earth, and blue for the sky. The mantras spread positive energy wherever they are.

Om- The sacred syllable
Mani- Jewel
Padme- Lotus
Hum- Spirit of enlightenment

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.

Transitive / Transform

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

Joan Ling, INNOVATOR AND ADVOCATE FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA and Ann Lindbeck, ARTIST

Contents of Trunk:

A letter ordering lumber by Pablo Neruda

Accordian landscape

Key to a China trunk

Map of California

Map of China

Architectural drawing

 

 

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!

Celebration of Beauty

My box celebrates the beauty of women. The jewelry box, a classic symbol of femininity, is elegant and beautiful as is the women rising out of it. She is transparent as air and looking at her, you see your beautiful self reflected in the mirror. A universal woman, she is not confined to the box, but rising out of it.  She and the mirror remind us that no matter who we are, our age, race, color, size, economic standing or physical ability, we are all beautiful.

Sor Juana

Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz was a 16th century Mexican nun. Not only was she one of the greatest poets and playwrights of her time, she was also the first person on this continent to argue in writing for the rights of women to be educated.

In Sor Juana’s time, a girl had only two real choices: she could marry or she could join a convent. Juana was illegitimate and had no father to pay her dowry, so marriage to a wealthy man who might foster her deep love for knowledge was out of the question. Marriage to a poor man would end her education, so reluctantly she joined a convent. In her convent she had extensive free time which allowed her to continue her studies.

Although she was not allowed to leave the convent, she was allowed visitors and many important people came regularly to visit this brilliant woman. She became quite famous and her books were bestsellers in Spain.

Defying the Inquisition and the profoundly patriarchal world she lived in, she filled her room with over 4000 books and wrote voluminously, particularly poetry. Later in life, she was threatened into silence by the male Church hierarchy and forced to sign a statement of repentance.

Her final days were spent caring for the poor, and she died after she gave up writing while caring for her sisters during a plague.

In her room was a sign that she had not completely surrendered; an unfinished poem, carefully hidden.

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.
 

Box Camera

Box Camera reflects our life-long commitment to the photographic arts from traditional to digital. It is an homage to earlier technical forms of imaging.

The tintype of the woman with books hints at Penny’s profession as a librarian and bookseller and incorporates the idea of educating women to expand their boundaries. Photography is a universal language crossing all borders.

Conjugation Between Earth and Sky

It is commonly known that in order to survive, blossom and continue the course of nature, it is necessary to intervene with our surrounding habitats. This lid symbolizes the ever lasting sky and its thousands and thousands of living species that are endangered by daily air pollution. The bottom represents our earth, life and death, the moments of glory, agonies of defeat, and on going war and peace.

Between this conjugation, we define sacred love for human beings and nature, our dreams and desires to fulfill a glorious and promising future.

In the end, conjugations of any type: earth and sky, man and nature or man and its kind must be cared for and preserved. The lack of attention to this contributes to the heavy consequences that we face today: the holes in our ozone, the wars and its death toll, last but not least the AIDS epidemic.

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.

 

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.

Portrait of an Artist as a Box

A box is a metaphor for open and closed, the inside and the outside, two terms upon which alienation is founded. My work becomes at once the physical and the psychological space in which I face the alienation brought on by the play of dichotomies that hinder the search for identity and the possibility of its realization. The box becomes the self, inside-outside.  The nails are symbolic of manly attire with weapon, the nail as phallus, the nail as material nature, the nail as primitive ancestral device, and also as the piercing eye.  Finally, the wall of nails echoes the brutality of our surroundings.

Inside, the place of the jewel, the vagina: we find but broken glass in a sky-like space: My innards can be broken, my psyche raped by the conqueror, the violent, the oppressor,  but the immensity of my mind remains untouched.

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.

Heroines

I am personally concerned with spiritual and creative identity through the abstract form. I find that creating many layers in my paintings builds a foundation or history of the statement I am trying to make. I want to obliterate as much traditional form as I can, yet still evoke images through layers of paint, glazed, and stains.

Painting, for me, can be a very lonely and difficult process. It is also exhilarating. In my personal experience I find that painting is the most powerful expression of my life and a most satisfying way to express my own humanity.

Apricot Box

From childhood through adulthood- fairy tales, myths, and even nursery rhymes follow us about, shaping us, forming us.  At an early age, we learn that beauty equals good, and ugliness equals bad.  We also learn something about the narrow range that is supposed to define a woman’s safety zone.

Miss Muffet sits and minds her manners, and even then, is frightened away by a spider, while Little Jack Horner gets to stick his thumb in the middle of a pie, pull out a plum, and thinks to call himself a good boy for having done so.

Apricot Box is about women reclaiming for themselves, the ripe, fruity, fragrant, luscious parts of ourselves, and about little girls, never losing it.

 

Song From the Earth

My work celebrates the Native American philosophy of centering one’s life in the natural world.  This is both a conscious and instinctual commitment.  Rather than illustrate this idea, I use materials to suggest our relationship to the earth.

On the brink of the new millennium, let us all be mindful of celebrating and preserving the earth’s gifts. This should be a universal concern.

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.

State of Grace

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

Grace Elizabeth Davis, WRITER, MOTHER AND MARATHON RUNNER and Terry Acebo Davis, ARTIST

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

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.

Dolores Huerta: Social Activist, Labor Leader, and Founder of United Farm Workers

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 and Terry Acebo Davis, ARTIST

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.

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.

Mother Ireland

This box as I first saw it started off as a “box nichili”, the more I analyzed it the more vague it became. But as I admired the perfect symmetry and beauty of this innocuous little box, we developed a very strong bond, and I knew I would be very loathe to part with it. It was this bonding that inspired my theme.

Mother Ireland bore her children in the knowledge that emigration was inevitable. The egg represents the womb, with the never to be severed umbilical cords spreading out to all parts of the world and generation after generation respecting and remembering their roots.

I shall never forget you my “bosca bag”, and I sincerely hope wheresoever your sojourn takes you, you will be my “box popoli”, “vox humana”.

Slan agus beannacht my little wooden friend.

 

Tomiko Fraser Revealed

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

TOMIKO FRASER, MAYBELLINE SPOKESPERSON/ACTRESS

Tomiko Fraser has benefitted greatly in her life from mentoring and, in return, wishes to nurture and empower other women. An exuberant, playful woman, she has been able to find her way and break free of the confines of others’ expectations.

In appreciation of Faith Ringgold and her painted story quilt “Sunflower Quilting Bee of Arles” (1991) and the women depicted within.

 

Alpha-Omega

My work shows our life’s journey from birth to death. These events are the bond that links all human beings. In between we encounter life’s challenges, both good and bad. The torso represents our beginning, the copper wire warrior figure shows our battle with life’s forces, and the lino block suggests our passage through time in the unknown. The jagged edges on the mirror glass show our testing times, where the smooth line of the circle represents life’s calmer waters. In traditional Celtic Art this holds the promise of eternity. For this reason I have included the circles and spiral symbols.

 

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.

 

Femme

Coast US feminist artists, revisited by key artists of the 1990’s. Exploration of vulval imageries allows me to consider female desire, seduction and discipline, and the role-liquidity of queer sexual play.

The metaphorical cultural veil of a socially/culturally formed feminine is materialized in my use of empty but sexually encoded garments (the little black velvet dress. lingerie, leather, corsetry, gloves) to stand in for the female body. A self-consciously feminist erotic is proposed, carefully controlled through allusion to the actual body, through textual ‘cunning lingua’, through acknowledgment of the seductive territories of sado-masochism, fetishism, voyeurism and exhibitionism, and through awareness of the potentially mulitiplicitous desirous nature of the gaze.

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.

 

Nancy’s Hope

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

NANCY SODERBERG, FORMER SENIOR FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR TO CLINTON, FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS

My impression of Nancy is a study in contrasts: powerful authority figure/pretty, blonde hair, soft features. Woman, wife, stepmother/facing the horror of war on a daily basis.

But a singular vision: the world can change, war can be contained.

So, we have a soft, hand-stitched pillow – symbol of domesticity, a womanly art. In the colors of the UN flag, the ultimate multilateral institution, and round, like the diplomatic Round Table. A locked, but fragile glass box, its contents a weapon of powerful but intimate destruction: an M67 Fragmentation hand grenade. And the key tucked safely away in a pocket of the UN pillow.

Gaia

I put earth into Pandora’s box, enclosing meaninglessness within. The box, decorated with various symbols and colors signify the contents. The edges and corners are softened.

The enclosure of earth becomes an oxymoron. A small portion inside stands for the universal. The box is a prayer to the larger form from which it was taken.

The pins refer to the sensitivity of a living body that will feel pain by being injured, but will also start to blossom. The GROUND/ SOIL/ EARTH as READY MADE, an allegory of GAIA (earth), the UNIVERSAL MOTHER AND LAST HOPE.

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.

 

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.”

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.

 

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.

 

Intimate Fragility

We are born into an intimate relationship of close bodily contact with our mothers. Touch is so basic, the mother of all senses that we tend to take it for granted. Without our noticing it, we have gradually become less and less tactile, more and more distant and physical untouchability has been accompanied by emotional remoteness.

The most tactile receptor on our body is the skin, and with force can be torn to shreds like our emotions. The symbol and carrier of life is the egg, characteristically feminine and fragile. The shell of an egg appears hard, tough skinned, breading through to the secondary layer its protective skin, we find it thin and fragile.

Material alone can define work, if perception is directed first to the material, the ideas in the work are often undervalued and the message becomes secondary to the medium. Hemming in the box in fabricated egg I have reinforced my ideals.

Genevieve’s Traveling Transformation Box

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

Genevieve Smith, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK and Barbara Earl Thomas, ARTIST

I shut the door on that house where I’d lived for 30 years. I never looked back. I can live anywhere.

Maybe it wasn’t exactly like that but that’s what I think I heard her say. From the Amazon to the city, one thing remains, Genevieve is constant, solid and clear putting on and taking off whatever the season calls for, but inside she remains the spring of her own life force, Genevieve.

Gen’s selected quote:

“The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.” – Oscar Wilde

Pam’s Tear Box

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

Pam Praeger, VICE PRESIDENT OF LEARNING, SPOKANE FALLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

One of the first things that Pam said to me was, “I don’t know if anyone mentioned it to you but I lost my daughter in May and I’m still struggling with the loss.” She said it almost apologetically. As I got to know Pam it became clear that Tara, the lost daughter, set a high bar for her mother through the lessons she taught the whole family during her dying. I also learned that Pam and Tara are a lot alike. Even in pain Pam’s first impulse was to help me. I knew instinctively that it was also what Tara would have done. I am grateful to Pam and Tara for their generosity and honesty. During our time together Pam cried more than once and each time she seemed at a loss about what to do with her tears. So I’ve made a Magic box for those tears. Its capacity is endless.

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

Representation of a Population

Culver City Highschool. Age 12.

My box is a representation of my population, African Americans. Throughout history, my people always had something to represent. From the motherland to this present day we have represented life, struggle, triumph, and perseverance. But as we begin a new generation, what do we have to represent now? What do we have to show our future, besides being a statistic?

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.

 

Outside the Box

To know who I am is the quest.
To learn lessons is the school of life
To see emotion as the road least traveled.
To find the path past mind is the road to the soul.
To see life as a continuously unfolding process
To live life to the fullest is to live in the present.
To open to humaness is to see life’s treasures
To live in the present is going outside of the box.

From: If Life is a Game, these are the Rules
The Rules for Being Human
Dr. Chérie Carter-Scott

 

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.

Reverberation: Yuri Kochiyama

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

Yuri Kochiyama, LEGENDARY CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST; CLOSE FRIEND AND ASSOCIATE OF MALCOM X and June Sekiguchi, ARTIST.

I want to represent the effect pivotal events had on Yuri Kochiyama and how her life and work had a ripple effect in turn. Something breaks the surface of awareness and affects a resounding change. The box is the foundation supporting barbed wire which acts not only as the internal framework of concentric ripples reverberating beyond the source, but references important aspects of Yuri’s life: internment and political prisoners.

The box holds a gathering of pebbles that signify the catalyst of change. The ripples are inscribed with quotes, influences, and documentation of her life. I’ve chosen to use text heavily in this piece because the written word has held a place of importance in Yuri’s connection to the world. Light and shadow reflect the intangible far reaching affect she has had.

Journey #17

Vietnamese / American Boxes

This box, a part of the Journey Series, combines elements as diverse as Egyptian funeral boats, Vietnamese river craft and streamline airplanes. Each piece explores the religious and spiritual significance of journeys through the symbol of the vessel. After my own experience of fleeing Vietnam in 1975, the vessel represents memories of hardship and hope.

Radical Profiling

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

Joan Takayama-Ogawa (artist) and Elaine Tajima (CEO, founder at Tajima Creative)

We live in times of war, where racial profiling threatens the freedom of Arab Americans. By transforming this wooden box into a shrine representing my family’s internment in Japanese American relocation camps, I hope that racial profiling will not happen again.

Symbols of the highest decorated American 442 Regimental Combat Unit, the luggage tags with family numbers for the Takayama and Ogawas, rotate around the box symbolically, tied with barbed wire. Along the perimeter of the black tray, a plant revered by Japanese Americans, connects with barbed wire symbolizing their incarceration. A gold crane perched on a post, represents the Hiroshima bomb.

Thirty-seven last names along the edge of the tray represent hundreds of my family members who were incarcerated during World War II, remembering freedom is fragile, and racial profiling is intolerable.

 

Opportunity Gap

This box purports to show the great disparity of living standards in the United States and the enormous differences in the haves and the have-nots.

In the 1970’s I photographed migrant workers in central Florida. The situation there was not too different from the photographs taken by the Farm Security Administration in the Thirties and the situation is the same today. In one camp far from civilization the workers lived in converted buses with 1 toilet and shower facility for over 70 people. The children did not attend schools as they were too far away. When the government finally closed the camp, they simply moved further into the outback.

Whole families worked the groves, including young children, but that was the only way the families could earn enough for the day.

Contrast this with the luxurious life styles of some today. There is a widening gap between the rich and the poor. As technology dominates the employment field, those with little education are doomed to low paying or no jobs at all. Our society is becoming more stratified economically.

Emerge: Each Holy Remain

This book/box was produced for the 1999 leg of the Women Beyond Borders show.  Its surfaces covered with gesso (support for intricate graphite drawings) and gold leaf, includes a reliquary indicating potential life, death, and  emergence into light. The 52-page book pictures detritus from daily living, preserved by attentive drawing and watercolor: seeds, bones, plant tips, shells, buds, nuts, skeletons.

I know that there are lives much tougher than my own, and that I am enormously privileged to luxuriate in the poignant beauty of the commonplace. I hope that we all sometimes have the opportunity to pause and consider, even in the helpless despair of suffering and the frustrating reality of working so hard so often for our own survival; physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional, and that of our loved ones, as well as all sentient beings.

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.

Untitled

I treated the box as an objet trouve, a modest thing with some forgotten purpose in its past. Upon being discovered, it brings to mind associations, and memories which unfold and spread out when the box is opened. Part object, part landscape, the image within the box does not recall a specific locus; rather, it reminds us of things that we know are memories. But these are stored in such distant lands that they cannot be conjured, they can only be gazed over.

Bearing One Another’s Burdens

As I contemplated my involvement in this project I was immediately drawn to the reverent simplicity of the tiny redwood box.  As I held the box and pondered its humble strength and quiet stability I was instantly reminded of the strength, perseverance and poise-under-pressure that often signifies women in general.  This strength of endurance caused me to then think of the many burdens we all carry around with us, and how much lighter the burden can be when we know someone is helping to carry the load.  The Bible reminds us to share in each other’s trials.  By helping to bear the load brought on by death, illness, heartbreak, loneliness or other oppressions, we offer comfort and hope.

In creating this visual testimony I attached the lid to the box and produced a stable and strong vessel.  The vessel houses the strength, perseverance and love that together can lift, carry and support the great weight of the burden that is placed upon it.  The burden, a complex aggregate rock, is both rugged and smooth in its makeup.  Beneath the rock is a cushion, a sheet of gold, intended to soften the burden.  The rock is bound to the box with a tightly wrapped and intertwined cord.  The cord is the weakest element.  It can be cut, and at any time the burden can be lifted.  The cord reminds us of our obligation.

It is my intent that this box stand as a reminder to all of us to humbly bear one another’s burdens, to encourage and strengthen one another, to love, honor and pray for one another.  By helping to bear the burdens, we find joy in knowing that we have contributed to the needs of others.  By bearing one another’s burdens there are blessings to be found in the midst of tribulation; there are victories to be found in hidden places.

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.

Missing Piece

To me, a basic unchanging form is the most beautiful, no matter what period of art you are examining. For any material or event there exists a basic framework. Within this basic frame, there exists a core which comes through the work of art above all else.

I use many materials, but I especially like to use materials with soul in them. I then strive to create a work in which the essence of the materials shows through. I would like to create artwork with a central form of happiness, pain, or sadness.

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.

 

Throne for a Smart Princess

the box is turned around
the helplessness of a woman is turned around.

a throne is created
creativity and self-confidence are experienced and rewarded.

Following the idea of Grimm’s fairy tale, the princess had only one chance to get her golden ball from the depth of the well: she had to promise to share her whole life with the helper, a frog.  As a smart woman she does not want to accept this type of dependence and help and so she finds a new solution to solve the problem.

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.

Skin Deep

Spilling out of a Pandora’s box, previously concealed truths reveal themselves. A hand, a living experience and the intuition it contains, is full of signification. This can be translated in a multiplicity of paradoxical ways.

Beauty is a socioeconomic and political construction. How we depict women in art opens up a dialogue and an opportunity to affect our inter-relationships. We are not alone in deriving pleasure from the spectacle.  Manet’s Olympia, and the official ideology she implies, returns our gaze.

 

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.

Place Hotel

Awareness goes back and forth between the reception of the piece of fake chocolate and the reception of the model of a seemingly dislocated house.

Question:  Would you possibly, lost in thought, make little balls out of the wrapping paper of the chocolate that you have just eaten and/or ever tried to penetrate the deeper meaning of the many ways of reoccurring walls?

Coffer Nephesh

The box, covered with lead, contains the soil of Israel. The phrase coffer nephesh in Hebrew, refers to ransom. Literally the word coffer means ransom and the word nephesh means soul.

COFFER: Like all objects whose essential quality is that of containing, it sometimes acquires the symbolic character of a heart, the brain or the maternal womb. The heart, the first of these meanings, is a figure characteristic of the symbolism of Romanesque art.

In a broader sense, receptacles which can be closed up have, from the earliest times, represented all things that may hold secrets, such as the Ark of the Covenant of the Hebrews, or Pandora’s box.

(J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, New York)

My Favourite Things

My most recent work has been installation-based amalgamations of photographic images and text, the result of which is a cross-over into an almost cinematic form and aesthetic. My practice has shifted from an analytical approach to the concepts outlined above to a more personal exploration of them. My use of image and text alters the codes which are usually brought to bear in ‘readings’ of these mediums. Each form is pushed aside in favor of the other, forcing them to jostle each other for primacy. The text is always my own writing, which consists of nightmarish vignettes (real and imagined), frequently including references to some popular cultural homily, in order to insert some humor/irony, and to suggest that there are certain pleasures to be obtained from the so-called negative aspects of culture/existence.

I decided to base my box on work I am currently exhibiting in a group show titled Fear Incorporated. I have closed and enclosed my box to suggest the mystery of that which is hidden (psychological/cultural, whatever). I then re- inscribed the surface of the box (or the cube it has become) in two layers. The first layer – photographic flowers, dissimulating nature – seduces, as only images of natural beauty can, yet forms a surface which shuts off investigation. The next layer – the text touches on the mysteries of the subconscious. The box spins around on its chain to laugh at the simplification of these complexities inherent in such ideas produced within popular culture (albeit a somewhat nostalgic, dated form of it) as “I simply remember my favorite things.” At the same time it suggests the potential for a kind of pleasure to be found in that which is relegated to the negative.

 

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.

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.

Couple

When two do not recognize their internal forces they remain prisoners of their facade and they add this facade to the other.  Thus inevitably they will be attached to each other by an intricate chain, forgetting their own space, staying knotted and desperately isolated.

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.

Web of Complexity

As an artist, arts educator and mother of two daughters, I continually open small doors.  Doors can be understood as metaphors for insights into life, as they shed light on the personal, social and political issues that impact our everyday lives.  As we navigate through these doors we find a continuous reconstruction of our own identities.  The dialogue within the box, and its door, conjures associations concerning questions of history and healing.  Gauze, from my grandmother’s tombstone, is soaked in beeswax.  It covers the wool felt, which surrounds a vessel housing the fragments of body tissue.

Untitled

This contribution has the intention of respecting the original box in its form and functionality. The dear box brings important and meaningful images to my mind. It can be said that I collect shapes of different character and dimension. At times my sculptures are developed from one of these shapes. Today I have put together a number of them as protagonists of our origin, our roots: an exuberant treasure that all of us can return to.

Seeing

Seeing is believing.  While communicating with community, the residue I experience?  It is the vital input that I am going to develop mutuality with my community at all times. And, the control interaction with relationship.  The mental collection of past and present is an endless experience. To contain the invisible content of the input and output of the experiences I encounter. Therefore, the reflection and exposure is to show the multiple irreversibility of the community through mental forms.

 

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.

Nights and Days of Life

Some days are dark
We don’t get anywhere
We feel stuck in a dead end
Going round and round in a circle
Banging our head like a stone
On the walls of our own limitations

And some days are light
We feel free like a whistle
Our voice rings like a bell
We see light everywhere
We see clear through everything
And all makes sense
All shines and all is well

Such is life
After all
For every single one of us
Isn’t it just a mirror
Reflecting our own inner state

 

The Vessel of Light

The vessel of Light is a woman laid bare,
she is a city on a hill and a lamp on a stand
See her light from within and praise her creator.

The vessel of Light is a soul pure and true,
Her charm is not fleeting and her beauty never fades
For they come from the fear of the Lord.

The vessel of Light is scorned by the world,
For her beauty is not outward and she does not seduce
And the darkness on earth cannot understand the light.

The vessel of Light is set apart in the world,
In the darkness of the night, she shines like the sun
For she lives not for pleasures of man.

The vessel of Light will live on forever,
With others much like her too,
The song she sings to the world from the Lord
Is as much as for her as for you.

Her light never fades, and her joyous song never dies
For what is physical will pass away,
But what comes from within, shines eternally
From her Salvation, she’ll never stray.

If you see her Light, please don’t turn away
The glory is not hers she says,
It comes from her salvation in The Light of the world,
And it could be yours too today.

 

Women's Voices: Faye Shen, Singapore from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.

Iamthereflectionofyoubutdoyouseetheconfusioninsideofme?

Culver City High School. Grade 11.

Inside of me there is a thin line between depression and happiness. Sometimes I dangle between the two, as if I am suspended on a wire and tied up by my own thoughts. Outside I am the reflection of everyone around me. You look at me and see yourself, see who and what you want to see. Although you look at me forever, you will forever see your own reflection and never penetrate to the inside where I am forever suspended between the two poles of my mind.

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.

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.

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.

 

Sparkle of Life

Coca-Cola Box Project.

Many years ago after a long and hot morning of doing house chores, my exhausted and thirsty mother would unexpectedly rush through the door. Intrigued, I would rapidly tie my worn out shoes and head to the kitchen. There holding a bottle, as if it were the last one left in the world, was my mom. As she drank it, a smile would slowly illuminate her face. Noticing my curiosity, she pointed at the bottle and said, “This is the sparkle of life.”

In a convulsive world of dispute over territory, religion and culture, men and women face a daily struggle searching for solutions to make this planet a better one for everybody. What has for many years been missing however, is the perspective of the real sparkle of life: The Woman. Just as Coca-Cola illuminated my mother’s eyes, this world would benefit greatly by considering more seriously the ideas and propositions of the woman. So, the purpose of this project was simply to portray and honor the woman not only as the sparkle of life but as the queen of the universe.

 

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?

 

Tran-Sisters

This is a continuation of my Hole Project which started, and the beginning presented, in 1999. The holes drilled on the foundation parts of the box represents the idea that life is full of little openings.  The transistors (primary device for amplifying electronic signals) represents the idea of enhancing the message of openings we find in life. The interconnection of the 3 (number 3 is one of the lucky numbers for me) parts of the box represents interconnections that we beings can engage in among ourselves, to promote the attitude that there is hope because we find openings.

Nurture

We take care of things that are important to us. The females of most species are considered to be nurturers and keepers of the “nest”.

Being and artist has allowed me the opportunity to nurture the things that are most important to me – represented by the golden eggs in the nest of brushes. I care about many things and to limit myself to representing just four became a daunting task – I thought about Peace, Love, Compassion and Creativity, but upon reflection each day, the list grew. How could I not mention family, good health, rich soil and clean water, friendships and the miracle of simply being whole?

So without putting words to the golden eggs, I’ll leave it for those who view the art to ponder…How and what will you “nurture” in your life? We must take care of what is most precious to us.

Spill It, A Veil of Truth

Coca-Cola Box Project.

The idea for our box originated from a website that the Coca-Cola company published called Spill It. Contained within the site were thousands of messages by people all around the world who just wanted to spill their minds and share with others. The box, covered with small pieces of aluminum Coca-Cola cans found in trash cans around the campus, is overflowing with little scrolls of personalized messages from whoever wanted to contribute.

Keep It Burning

matches played with in our youth
we were going to set the world on fire
maybe still
maybe again
keep it burning.

lighted candles, take a breath
don’t blow them out
inner glow, light, fire, magic
keep it burning.

grow with the flame; feel its warmth
light the passion
dance with the fire
keep it burning
keep it burning!

Medium: wood, metal

Tight Fit

This piece of work explores the notion of restriction and objectification by juxtaposing an old-time practice of foot binding with fashionable high heeled shoes.  Pain, in both historical and contemporary context, is symbolized by the shrouded shoe.  Times may have changed, but certain perceptions of women remain deeply entrenched.  In the past, women were obliged to have their feet bound in order to be considered beautiful and desirable by men.  Having small feet was a symbol of stature and gentility.  Hence, women’s feet were forcibly bound to fit into dainty, three-inch long shoes.  Today, women subject themselves to the pain and discomfort of three-inch (or more!) high shoes to enhance their feminine appeal.  Yet, hidden behind the glossy look is this sense of inadequacy and the desire to be looked at.  Are we now considered willing participants of a game of restrictive beauty, to the point of disregarding the possible hazards by wearing heels?

Women’s Unlimited Potential

This little box reminds me of a woman in the olden day, which a woman can only do things within this little space. What is a woman identity today?  Woman is no more constrained within this space. Woman is full of wisdom and Unlimited Potential.

She can transform herself in various forms.

She can express herself just like the color in the palette.
She can express her creativity just like a tree…so full of energy.
She can transcend all her cells to enliven this society.

I’m that Woman with Unlimited Potential!

Emerging Woman

don’t judge me on how I look
don’t assess my usefulness with inverse proportionality to the size of my waist
you will not measure my true worth in inches
don’t use my breasts to see a product that has no connections to my body
if my thighs are large
it’s because I use them to support myself
if my stomach is rounded
it’s because it is full and fertile
my face–my eyes, my smile are not important
I am a woman and therefore beautiful.

 

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.

Close to the Edge

This collaborative project focuses on the network of relationships which support the mother as she experiences changes in Self identity within the frame of Motherhood. The changing perceptions of Self, whilst universal in Motherhood, differs significantly from person to person. This project involves each member of my personal support group of expatriate mothers in Singapore, expressing their experiences of motherhood in a “foreign” environment. Through the box, I sought to express my personal experience on a theoretical basis, placed in the context of my support network. Thereby the work seeks to reveal the differing experiences and changes in the perception of self, as well as the importance of a transient support network.

Remnants

Remnants references my many, may years as a working artist, particularly as a printmaker. I selected remnants from 30 years of art-making into the contained box, making my own sort of small “retrospective”. Working on this piece brought up a wide spectrum of memories, thoughts and emotions – and the toil and labor that go into a work of art. I consider myself a very fortunate person.

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.

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.

 

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.

My Grandmother

Coca-Cola Box Project.

As long as I can remember my grandmother in Mexico always bought seven bottles of Coca-Cola a week. She has one bottle a day: a few ounces in the morning mixed with two raw eggs; a few ounces with lunch; and the rest with her dinner. She never drinks water at all, just the Coke. She is ninety-two years old.

 

Island of Many Pleasures

Welcome to Singapore, truly inspiring city where East meets West.  A Country with a unique array of rich ethnic cultures.  A vibrant city with many exotic, exciting and extraordinary attractions for visitors. Visitors should be able to feel the spirit of harmonious Singaporean living together as ONE UNITED PEOPLE REGARDLESS OF RACE, LANGUAGE OR RELIGION. Let the World be UNITED like Singapore and there shall be PEACE & HARMONY.

Personal Affairs

The little book attached, describes the origin of the fabric (where it was woven and printed), its purpose (as far as it could be tracked down) and most important the donor. The donors are all women who I have got to know in Singapore (except my mother who has visited me in Singapore for 4 months). The box might be seen as synonym for the female body (or at least part of it), all those pieces of different fabric stand for the colorful, multi-layered women personalities.  The chain at which the little book is attached has a meaning too: It stands for all women who have not freed themselves from a world which is still very much male-dominated.

Pearls of Hope

Let’s hope

There will be no more wars and differences among countries… and instead, peace…

The world will be free of the evils of human nature–greed, fame and vanity…

The word cancer will be erased from our world with advancement in medicine…

The pearls of hope will illuminate our world, and help us realize our dreams…

I Would Still Like to Have…er…Chewing Gum

The ban of chewing gum a decade ago has caused quite a stir not only in Singapore but internationally too.  Although it may seem to be a trivial act or even unimportant matters in a political dimension, it has nonetheless created some public awareness of how far an average citizen can tolerate this form of authoritarian regime.

 

As a law-abiding citizen of Singapore, I have no choice but to give up one of my favorite habits and life’s little luxury during my younger days.  Nowadays, we can still spot someone chewing gum discreetly in public especially on board of public transport.  It’s not a big crime or anything like that as long as it is disposed properly into the bins.  Although the government has shown a good degree of tolerance, it is still against the law to sell or import chewing gum.

 

I still chew gums that I brought back from overseas and enjoy blowing big bubbles like I used to so; what’s a little law-breaking gonna do to me?

 

Watersheds

Coca-Cola Box Project

We were intrigued by the boundary aspect of this Women beyond borders box project. Our thoughts turned to physical boundaries, specifically those found in Santa Barbara. By looking at a map, you can see the natural boundaries that are created by watersheds in our area. A watershed is an elevation, a divide, a drainage basin that separates one river system from another, and ultimately drains to a watercourse or body of water. Defining Santa Barbara by its watersheds would change our existing boundaries.

At this point in time, watershed education is important. There are vital connections between our watershed resources, human activity and water quality. Watershed restoration improves water quality, creeks, wetlands and the ocean.

Conflict

Like most domestic tools, the straight pin is usually considered a useful and innocuous object. I use thousands of them to make aggressive statements referencing handwork, domesticity and the female voice. The finished pieces are beautiful. They are also sharp and dangerous. Like the tiny pins that efficiently perform multiple household tasks, my work suggests more than what meets the eye. “Conflict” physically expresses endured emotional battles.

With my background in fiber art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I am intrigued by the works of George Segal, Edward and Nancy Kienholz, Cathy de Moncheaux, Annette Message, Louise Nevelson, Eva Heese and Ann Hamilton. Finally, the following excerpt, as read not in context, but taken from Anais Nin’s A Spy in the House of Love, 1968, pp. 6-7, sheds light on my ideological treatment of perception.

“She was like an actress who must compose a face, an attitude to meet the day…She must redesign the face, smooth the anxious brows, separate the crushed eyelashes, wash off the traces of secret, interior tears, accentuate the mouth as upon a canvas, so it will hold its luxuriant smile. Inner chaos, like those secret volcanoes which suddenly lift the neat furrows of a peacefully plowed field, awaited behind all disorders of face, hair and costume, for a fissure through which to explode.”

The Battlefield of Selfhood/ A Box of Empty Shells to Ponder

Beings killing out of jealousy, rage,
betrayal, revenge, self righteousness.

Some die without a loss of body though —
through abuse and intimidation, disagreement.

Untamed emotions creating a battlefield within.
Un-conquered, raw, heartless.

The primary battlefield.

Led from the mind, from the heat of hatred,
destroying another, destroying the Self.

Hear the names of outer battlefields —
Bosnia, Iraq,
Oklahoma City, Somalia, subways in Japan.
In the home,
Couples turning from lovers to killers.
Children killing children.

Anger looming in the human heart —
on the loose, unpredictable.
Where is the greatest battlefield to conquer,
on the terrain or in the heart?

Where to fight the battle?

A box of empty shells to ponder.

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

Another Play-Thing

A child or an adult who handles this magnetized material discovers through a variety of experience what it is saying.

For those who like surprises, I suggest collaboration with this animated material when attempting a re-arrangement – even “letting go” and allowing the magnetic forces of attraction and repulsion direct the play.

A haphazard appearance is one of the factors which may provoke a viewer, out of attraction, annoyance or curiosity, to touch this material and discover that its arrangement is temporary.

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.

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.

Untitled (Pandora)

People say that in some northern farmyards a cover closes the wells that are not in use anymore. The owners justify this closure, saying that children or visitors could, accidentally, fall to the bottom of one of these wells. The truth is that their motives are less thoughtful. What they fear is not that somebody might fall, but that the child who was thrown to the bottom of the well, like a family secret, suddenly surfaces again to the world.

Yoni As Mirror Stage

“As a body is to the soul and an oil to the lamp, a yantra is to the divinity.” –Kularnava Tantra (chap v, 86)

Through the mirror you constitute yourself as an object (you observe yourself from the others point of view).

A comment on a certain problem of perception, a problem which tacitly influences our ways of communicating with the world. Languages, images and other forms of representations of reality are not fully transparent tools to relate to the world. In all languages and representations, there is a displacement, or rather, distortion of the world and they are dependent upon the expectations and information we put into play in a communicative situation.

Journey of Love

Journey of Love is about the relationship between my mother and me. It explores the all-consuming physical and psychoanalytical paradoxes seen in this relationship between mother and daughter, and the problem-solving exercises that may inform one’s point of view about relationships, change, and seeing oneself among others. This exploration leads to the use of the needle and thread, and the act of weaving which symbolizes the journey in mending of a relationship. My mother is my best friend and she is loving, intelligent, patient and reasonable. To weave is to tighten the ties between us. Each act of weaving symbolizes my efforts to mend my relationship with my mother. The use of gold thread constantly reminds me of my mother’s skin because she seems to glow with such warmth and health. The needle attached in-between the weaves with some of the thread wrapped around it symbolizes the act of weaving or repairing which does not end but continues on a more emotional level. The experience in working on the box was illuminating and therapeutic, offering me not only an opportunity to reflect on my life, but also it gave me the strength to be closer to my mother.

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.

Posibilidades

What is this piece about? For me, it’s about the danger of sensuality. How we are beckoned by the flesh. How our desire can become our anguish. How a wrong decision can mean death, be it of the spirit or the body. How the need for self-destruction can be initiated in a seemingly healthy person from the hurt and pain of a relationship. Thus — the presence of the sword. Although I also see this sword as positive, perhaps a form of protection or an attribute, like that of Saint Agnes. *

The question of violence enters in here, too. This woman — in all her sensuality — is in a coffin. Why? Was she a victim of violence, of rape? Can our sensual self die under certain circumstances? Is our nudity kept hidden away in a dark, quiet place?

The veil also invokes the mysteriousness of Muslim women, their eyes being their only available sensual feature.

* (Saint Agnes was very beautiful, but she rejected all of her suitors, one of whom became angry and had her condemned to death. Since it was forbidden to execute virgins, she was first sent to a burdel. Nevertheless, no man was able to touch her. After being tortured, she was finally decapitated. She is often portrayed with a sword piercing her breast. She is the patron saint of virginal innocence.)

Simulacra

Every little treasure has a message inside…..

SIMULACRA is the title I have chosen for my work in aluminum realized using the original box as a model for the casting. I engraved the cover of the box (previously covered with terra-cotta) with stylized signs, although the meaning of this work is not to be understood in these signs.

SIMULACRA (in the Latin larger sense means: copy, effigy, sculpture…) plays a role of criticism to the idea of original (represented by the original wooden box I received) and “copy” (in the way the original one is cast).

You may ask yourself which one has to be considered the original between the two: the two boxes having to be exhibited always together!

I play too with the idea of container and content implicit in the fact that the object is a box.

Finally the title SIMULACRA allows you to think about the platonic concept of mimesis (Art as imitation, in a larger sense), this is not to provide a solution but to push the viewer to think about these matters.

Arrivederci Roma

In a world of many and endless wars, this music box of memories represents moments of happiness from the past that offer us hope for a better future.

Invitation reverberates within the box’s walls. Notes hang from the ceiling, filling the shallow emptiness, filling us with the joy of a new moment, a new life, a sharing, a memory.

A Letter to My Mother

The box contains notes with words which were never said to her mother.

Dear Mother,

When I was eighteen, I bought you, with my first salary, a wooden jewelry box. You still keep it, treasuring it. Now, twenty-five years later, I’m giving you this box which treasures words. These are all the words I could have told you during our lives together, but wasn’t able to. These are words I should have told you, dear mother.

Here are all the missing words, just for you. It’s a wonderful opportunity to write them down, to feel their sound within my heart. To prepare a special gift for a special woman: my mother.

Your loving daughter,
Shuli Nachshon

The Women's Voices: Shuli Nachshon, Israel from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.

Box-Bird and Branch

The cosmos of my work is in a forest. Flights of birds grow on silent trees and huge seeds take different positions. The leaf is the poetic unit which allows the magic passage from the world of plants to the one of animals and from there to the geophysical world.

When I begin my work, I spend a lot of time minutely observing the physical world. Then this state of vigilance is changed through a more distant positioning in which the object I observe is the parallel motion of my creative process to that of nature.

Is there an ecology of conceptual and creative phenomena? I often tend to incorporate ecological concerns by contrasting elements (birds on trees without foliage, seeds with burning interiors) to suggest the interplay of human interventions on natural processes.

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.

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.

Weasel

For centuries, women in Bosnia have been telling fortunes by looking at the bottom of their cup from which they drank coffee.  This is a sort of white magic.  They turn the cup upside down and then different shapes from out of the coffee  grounds left in the bottom of the cup. Each ‘figure’ represents a symbol; dog-fidelity, horse-strength, rabbit-speed…

The weasel has a special place in the history of Bosnia.  It represents the protector of the Bosnian rulers.

The weasel, which is a very blood-thirsty animal, amazes us because of the gentleness of the mother.

I started thinking about this after I had seen this ‘figure’ in my cup.

Pressing Issues

In the tradition of the found object and the democratic processes of making and distributing art, I have made a mini printing press out of my cedar box. The box is now a stamp with a pad inside the box with pressing issues waiting to be revealed.

• Who controls female fertility?
• What happens to all the women and children who are refugees?
• Can women artists maintain careers into old age?

Therese Kenyon, Australia – Director, Manly Art Gallery from WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS on Vimeo.

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.