What's in a box? There could be treasures, old photographs, love letters, secrets and memories from one's past. There may also be trinkets and special accessories. Why do we hide away our things in boxes? A simple box may be clearly considered a "piece of trash," or it may also be considered a wonderful storage device for things we want to save or things with which we just cannot part.
I myself have grown up in a family that values "the box." Boxes upon boxes store our treasured items from childhood to maybe someday be brought out again for future children. They store things that we just don't use on a daily basis, but are definitely good and worthy of use someday, by some motivated individual.
Therefore, the box may not only be this symbol of the past and holding on to things. It may also be like one's heart and soul: where one may put the seeds of all those dreams, to keep them safe. If they are put in a box, when one falls asleep and stumbles, getting up, trying to remember where they were trying to go, they may look back in that box and review those seed dreams and start building anew. They may, again, start walking to that hoped-for-place.
So here's to the box!
Some special family members recently gave me a gift and it came in this fabulous white box (yes, I'm describing a box as fabulous because it felt great to the touch, it was sturdy, it was white and it opened and shut nicely with a little string clasp). I saw this white box as the perfect new canvas, somewhere to create. So here's the box I decorated and doodled on with sharpie markers and gel pens.
Notice the little string tie.
I guess I designed some kind of paradise. The place where I would really like to be. A rainbow, cherished rain to power our streams and bring us life, an apple tree, a bright big yellow sun, flowers on a nice soft grassy hill, a wise old owl to keep you company, and of course, my heart soaring above up high filled with love.
I love folk music. I love the word "folk" in general. "Folk," meaning people, is a term to me that recognizes "the people." The "people" as a whole of individuals. Yes there are differences, but "folk," to me recognizes the humanness and how we are all one in the same. Therefore, I am identifying myself as a folk artist. I am not saying I am the only one, but want to be an artist of the people. One of many others. An artist who is human and who creates for and of the people.
FOLK ARTIST.
I designed the top of the box as a day scene and I found it only most appropriate to do a night scene on the bottom of the box. I do not know what can be more beautiful than a starry sky, gemstones lit up, up high, in the untouchable sky. A big moon smiling down keeping us in tune to nature and the constant cycles.
The mountain is inspired by a volcano I lived next to in Ecuador. I lived on the skirts of Taita Imbabura. He was a beautiful volcano-mountain with grassy slopes leading up to a clear hard rock at the top. I tried climbing him with a friend and we got up into the clouds and couldn't see our way anymore, so we came down. He is a powerful and a male figure for the people and land.
This is my box. My tangible heart and soul where I will put in those seed dreams so that when I lose my way, I know where to go.
