Tuesday, March 3, 2009



Today we "hung " the Box Show. This is the eighth year The Artists Gallery has had a box show as the yearly fund raiser. Each of the 24 members and invited guest artists are given an 8 inch wooden cube to do with what they will. In the past some have completely destroyed the box and then reassembled it as a new form or burned it to assist a raku firing in a ceramic kiln. Most are painted. Some are decorated to resemble anything but a box with all matter of objects attached. I love visual puns or puns of any sort so this year I made a "box turtle". Or is it a "painted" turtle? Or a painted box turtle ? Either way he's on a tortoise shell skate board. My original thought was to have a snail riding the back of the turtle and title the piece "Wheeee" . I may still add the snail. The skate board came about when I was trying different bases and this seemed to fit best and evolved into a skate board. There were only two colors used on the whole piece, quinacridone gold and permanent violet, two of my favorites. Together they made for some really rich browns. Saturday is the opening reception and the silent bidding starts, ending the final Saturday this month. I'll post some photos of the opening. It's always a blast. A very special "Thank you" to Nicholas Simmons for consenting to be my guest artist this year. He turned out a wonderful piece (are we surprised ? ) and I send along apologies for backing him into a "corner" with this project ! But Nick, you won the "boxing match " .

4 comments:

  1. That looks really cool Janet, and a very clever idea. I'm afraid I didn't think up anything nearly so creative, but hope to contribute to earning the gallery some money. I'll try and stop by this week before we leave to check it all out. Thanks again for asking me, and hope to see you at the Strathmore show too! Nick

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  2. A million thanks to you Nick. Your box is GREAT. Hope it didn't take too much time away from more important things. See you in Rockville!

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  3. You've got imagination Janet! What a beautiful turtle!. I hope you raise enough money.
    And you wondered how I tracked you?. Well, it's very simple. We've got a friend in common. Guess who? The very same talented artist that has written on this post. It's a small world...

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  4. Hi Anna ! So glad you came back to visit. Can I pour you some coffee ? Imagination ?...I'm not sure it's that. Just my silly sence of humor that gets me in trouble sometimes. I credit the many interesting people I've met over the years . Several are "wordsmiths" and we share the love of puns. Of course I grew up with two big brothers that were always making jokes so it was self defense lots of times and has carried on to the real world...yes the one that's getting quite small !

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