Tue 25 Jan 2022
Day 15, 16, 17 of 365
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, craft, projects
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Day 15
Day16
Day 17
boxes
Archived Posts from this Category
Sat 22 Jan 2022
Day 12, 13, 14 of 365
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, craft, projects
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Warning: if you send me a card there’s always a possibility it will end up as a part of a box. If there’s correspondence associated with it I’ll scan it and save it, but there’s often a certain ruthlessness involved with arts and crafts projects.
(I welcome all cards. ;-D)
Day12
Day13
Day 14
Wed 19 Jan 2022
Day 10 and 11 of 365
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, craft, projects
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Day 10
Day 11
Mon 17 Jan 2022
Day 8 and 9 of 365
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, craft, projects
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Day 8
Day 9
Sun 16 Jan 2022
Day 5, 6, 7 of 365
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, craft, projects
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Day 5
Day6
Day 7
Wed 12 Jan 2022
Day 3 and 4 of 365
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, craft, projects
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Day 3
Day 4
Mon 10 Jan 2022
Day 1 and 2 of 365
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, craft, projects
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What I posted to Twitter and Instagram: “Madness. Some years back when I was still caregiving I folded a box a day for a year to give myself something that was just for myself. One of the rules I set myself was that I could only use paper that came readily to hand–nothing that I’d bought: product boxes, Xmas cards, calendars, junk mail. I’ve punked the corner of this box, but product boxes are just slightly too thick for easy folding so I often seem to punk at least one corner. I plan to turn these into a textile mixed media piece. We’ll see how that goes.”
Since posting that, all the way back to yesterday, I’ve discovered that I’m a total liar. Or, at least, that my memory has holes in it. In fact, my mother had already passed away when I last did this project, but I was still working at a job that was busy and half-killing me and still a ways away from retirement. So it just felt like I was still a caregiver. I guess, in a way, I was. I was taking care of myself, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to stay alive and viable until I could make an exit.
It’s funny how memory plays tricks on you, which is why I generally try to verify my own recall before posting anything publicly. But, you know, the computer which had the information on it was a whole fifteen feet away from where I was sitting last night and I didn’t want to cover such an arduous distance. Hoist on my own faulty petard. Boom boom.
I suspect no one cares, but at least my conscience is clear.
Day 1
Day 2
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Wed 28 Oct 2020
Audra
Posted by PJ under boxes, identity, quote of the day
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Random quote of the day:
“I’ve spent my whole career trying to stay out of any box that anyone could put me in. ‘I’m going to do a play now.’ ‘Now I’ll do a musical.’ That was my instinct. So I don’t feel boxed in. But ‘African-American woman’ is part of my identity. I don’t want to relinquish that—especially as a mother, helping my daughter find her identity.â€
—Audra McDonald, The New York Times, July 10, 2016
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Tue 20 Aug 2019
Tales of a box folder
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, projects
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I was having a conversation with my friend
Mainly, I said to my friend, I’m feeling shame about this. I did complete my mission of folding one box a day for a year but all the little boxes are now sitting in a large box waiting for me to do something with them. I’ve had several ideas, but whatever I produce to incorporate them all is going to be rather large so I haven’t had the drive or the will for the next phase.
I had thought to weave them all together with fine copper wire, even bought some wire and started that process—and it promised to look quite smashing! But I soon realized that 1) it would take an entire wall to display, and 2) I don’t currently have a large enough workspace to incorporate that process.
Then I bought a small airplane propeller (like one does) with the idea of hanging them from it and suspending it from the ceiling. But again, so many small boxes and not enough room to work on it. I hung the propeller on the wall instead.
(In case anyone is wondering about the rocks in that basket—because sometimes people do—I found these lovely slate grey pebbles and these lovely snow-white pebbles and they looked so lovely sitting side by side that I filled the basket with them sitting side by side. 😉 My cleaning people gave me the side-eye the first time they saw them, but they didn’t say much. They have long-since given up questioning my many odd decorating choices. And they’ve been much happier since I told them not to bother dusting the mantelpiece.)
After the propeller debacle, I remembered that I had an old Japanese-style three pane folding screen covered in rice paper which had been damaged (the rice paper) in the Great Rat Invasion. (Apparently, rice paper is tasty?) It was composed of many small wood-framed rectangles. I thought I could remove the rice paper and display the boxes in the rectangles. It would be compact enough for display, plus I wouldn’t need to lay it flat to work on it. I got most of the rice paper off—though not as much as I remembered (as I saw when I photographed it) (Did I mention what a pain in the butt it is to cut out hundreds on small rice paper squares?) (It was one large sheet of rice paper, but glued thoroughly to each square so I couldn’t remove it all at once.) (And it occurred to me just now that I might have been able to steam it off, but oh well.) The problem with the screen was that there were only 200-something rectangles and 365 boxes, plus some of the boxes were bigger than the rectangles. So that stalled.
But that idea may be coming back around again. I think I can come up with a work around. It’s just a question of my ambition coming back around again.
So many projects, so little ambition.
