MEMORY BOXES

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For the past two years I’ve been exploring these box constructions. It all started when I walked into an antique shop in upstate New York and saw an old wooden ammunitions box for $5.00, and decided it was simply too cheap to pass up. My original intention was to use it as an accent piece in my kitchen, a place to store onions and vegetables… I was aiming for something “rustic”, something other than the usual glass bowl on the counter.

On the drive home I was thinking about my next project: a series of small works based on displacement and childhood memories. Originally I was going to use unprimed canvases and vintage wall papers, and then I realized that I could make the series three dimensional if I somehow managed to incorporate old boxes and found objects, creating sort of a stage, or a set within its space like memories inside the brain. Furthermore, the boxes could be stacked to form installations that would change every time they were displayed, adding a new dimension to the work, reflecting the fact that often memories change over time and are not always a solid account of events or feelings in our past.

After finishing the first three of four, I showed them to my gallery, and he proceeded to tell me that constructions were really hard to sell, and that even though these were beautiful, it would be difficult for him to find buyers for them. So…. I keep making them.