Our Life in a Box - Artwork In Progress

Friday Date Night wasn't as successful as I had planned. It was fun, but not productive. After dinner and a couple bottles of hefeweizen, I decided that working on my Portland Love Quilt would be a lot more enjoyable than prepping myself for what might be the tightest squeeze ever. On Sunday afternoon I was feeling a little more ambitious and busted out the painters tape, laser level, box cutter, and lots of hope. I measured and taped the floor and Jesse helped out with the walls, since my arms are a lot shorter (as is my temper). We both took a few steps back and gazed at the creation that will be with us until the day we move - no kidding, the tape stays.

Three observations:
1) Eight feet is a lot taller than I imagined.
2) A 7'x7'x8' box is pretty darn small.
3) I kind of like the blue line. It brings order to the chaos.

In college, my professors were always asking us to "create space" with insane things like a bottle of glue, 5 pennies, and a cardboard shoe. While in concept, it seemed like a cool idea, but in reality, uh, pennies? And I have to build my own shoe? Come on. This is Architecture 101 right? Where are the bricks? The mortar? The t-squares? Long story short, I paid my dues and made it through enough studio semesters to get a solid foundation in the principles of design, but eventually dropped out of architecture school. Instead, I pursued more concrete studies that involved actual buildings.

Last night, I was telling my friend Jon about our blue tape box that morphs out of the corner and bleeds into the furniture. As a bit of background, Jon was also in my architecture program at Philadelphia Textile and actually became a real architect. I attribute his success to the fact that he was way more open to the studio critiques (which is just a nice word for esoteric bullshit) and loved things like drawing window details and memorizing electrical code. When I was describing my insane idea of fitting all of our stuff into a tiny wooden crate, Jon said that the box was like a new beginning and that we had essentially embarked on our own little installation art project. He also suggested that I check out Michael Landy, who shredded all of his belongings in 2001 (including his car) as a form of expression. Ha. Very funny, Jon.

Anyway, back to me, the brilliant installation artist. I don't need to go to a museum now because I create art in my own apartment. How very abstract and forward-thinking of me. I will definitely have to put on a beret and monochromatic garb for my next post on "creating space." You know, for authenticity. (Note to self: must quickly think of concept for my space creation. Must critique something...or nothing...which is it these days?)

It will be interesting to see how long we can stand the wait before we start boxing things up and shoving them in our perfect little blue box. It will also be interesting to see how many crates it really takes to get us out there!