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BOXES beyond borders

Tag: Religious

faith • hope • love

Artist from USA

I am an ABC, an American Born Chinese; one woman with two cultures and three words that hold my life together: Faith, Hope and Love. The secret that holds my life together is in the box… and that is the radiance of Christ.

Faith – in Christ
Hope – in His future for me and my family
Love – in my heart for my family
my friends
my two countries
and my life in Him

Under His love, I have “new life.” The butterfly represents my life in Him. I’ve chosen this fabric, not just because it was left over from my dining room chairs (up-cycling) but also, because fabrics and interiors have been a big part of my life and career here in Taiwan for over 36 years.

My deepest truth is: Faith, hope and love in the Lord has guided and blessed my life in ways I could never have imagined or dreamt of.

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

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.

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.

 

Being

My box represents the three aspects of being. The lower section shows bones and clay through glass, representing the transient nature of the human body- physical being. On the box itself I drew my doodles and ancient Irish symbols representing the collective unconscious of mental being. Finally, the angel on top represents the spiritual being.

Love

Teen Box. Culver City Highschool. Grade 11.

My box was based on the book of I Corinthians 13 in the Bible. Love is not something that is jealous, boastful, and impatient. I used the last verse:

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.” But the greatest of these is love. The box represents love itself, with in it are the mustard seeds which represent faith because God said “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you could move mountains.” The stars represent hope. The leaves in front of the box symbolize the growth of love, that it never stops getting better.

Surely Goodness…

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Untitled

Green, yellow and blue are the colors of our flag. Rwanda, a nation recovering from the blood shed of man. The red doom is the symbol of Genocide and the white cross with the bleeding heart of Jesus, who sacrificed that Rwanda be made clean, symbolized by the white cross.

Yellow is sunshine, hope for Rwanda. Green is life and growth and blue is reconciliation, possible only though the blood of Jesus.

Restoration

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

 

For Ritta

USA/Czech Republic

My sister died before I was a little girl.
She was put in a gas chamber in a
concentration camp.

My daddy was so sad he couldn’t stop
them so he made another little girl right
away so he could forget about Ritta and
be happy again

Only this was not ok with G-d. G-d
thought that this was too fast so he
played a trick on Daddy. He took
Ritta’s soul, which was still very upset
from being starved and gassed and
burned and sent it back to Earth.

Normally a soul would be allowed to
float around out there for a couple
hundred years or more to calm down
after doing Life. So it was shocking for
Ritta’s soul to come back too quickly
and-this was the mean part-to be
stuck in Janicka’s body.

This was very hard for me. I thought I
was supposed to smile. Everyone
wanted me to be a happy pretty little girl
so they could be happy and forget. But,
too bad looked like a bullfrog and I
could tell they thought that and were
ashamed. So no smiles. They didn’t
know about Ritta’s soul and that it took
up so much space may own little heart
didn’t have room to beat.

So along we went, poor starved gassed
and burned Ritta and what was left of
me and no one knew so I was very sad
and lonely. And poor Daddy couldn’t
forget Ritta because she was inside the
little bullfrog.

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

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.

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.

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.)

Fire

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

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

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

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

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

The Myth of the Spider

For years now, being taught by the spider, I weave webs.  Small ones and large ones using all kinds of materials.  To me it is an infinite source of spiritual codes. I chose the ancient myth of Goddess Athena and the Spider. From the little box arises what has been marking us for centuries, the challenge of becoming Gods.

Two women comprise the myth…Goddess Athena, holder of wisdom, protectress and teacher of the weaving art and the Spider, mortal, outstanding weaver, daughter of Idmon the colorist, mother of Clostiras. Spider challenges Athena to a weaving contest. She creates a beautiful, flawless tapestry. This image insinuates the desire of mortals to reach the divine qualities of the gods to desire to live up to their level.

Athena infuriated by this, punishes the spider sentencing her to live from then on and forever hanging from a thread, transformed into an insect. Being an insect now, the spider weaves its beautiful webs till this day, still creating.

Art contains arrogance.

Art challenges the gods.

Art creates little gods.

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.