Rough, Uncut Version of "Drawing Inside the Box"

Drawing Inside the Box

There’s too much peer pressure to conform. Wait a minute, maybe it’s the correct amount of pressure. Conformity allows us to form what we call a society. It is extremely important for the cohesiveness of a group for members to think inside the same box.

His latest one-man exhibition was held in the rather large storage room of the local Pottery Barn. Refreshments were served during the opening. Lunchables and boxed wine were available at cost, in the alley, as the Pottery Barn had no liquor license.

The Drawings and collages he had created were produced directly upon the kraft cartons circling the room, floor to ceiling. All sides of the cardboard boxes, not only those facing the center of the room, had been decorated, marked, painted, or drawn upon. Perhaps the number of boxes was more than a hundred. No attempt was made to obscure the lettering: MADE IN CHINA. The cartons were not empty, but heavy. Inside these decorated cartons remained the articles, goods, and saleable wares. Black stenciled labels indicated the contents. I picked up several boxes and peeked at the drawings on the underside.

The value of each artwork included the cost of the enclosed products, at retail price less ten percent. This exhibition did not conform to standard museum or gallery conventions.

Our society uses education and media to spread its culture and encourage conformity. Key to success within this society rides upon understanding the dominant language.

Drawing and art-making are a language form. We transmit ideas, feelings, memories, and so much more through our use of this language. It is a language that seems alien to the uninitiated, but is no more alien than the string of sounds we call music.

Our society presents us with certain preconceptions about Art. One common idea is that a drawing should be identifiable as a representation of an object or subject from our visible, everyday world. If it is not what we call a photographic likeness, it is expected to display enough of the attributes to signify what it represents. We are conditioned by our culture to identify. As children we develop our communication skills, refining as we progress.

We tend to interpret a first grader’s “awkward” or “crude” painting of Mommy and Daddy in the same way we interpret the child’s early attempts at writing: we recognize the misspelling, accept the scrawl, but understand the message and feelings. These early efforts are stuck to the refrigerator, by proud parents.

But look at the core expression in both the early drawings and attempts at writing and notice the raw emotion and honesty.

Then things change. It’s down hill afterward for drawing. Our focus on written communication outpaces the neglected inner life that drawing evidences. Visual language is left undeveloped, by comparison. I don’t even want to comment on the short shrift given art within the educational system. Much of what visual language we do learn is acquired by default, not through educational channels, but through exposure to the world. That’s good and bad.

It’s good to take in information, but unfortunate that we do not tend to create or develop our own messages. Generally, we become passive consumers, responding to the external idiom. When we are asked to draw, or make a picture, our young selves jump in with total abandon, losing ourselves in the act. Our adolescent selves respond differently. We have learned to look at what others do for support. What are the expectations? Does my drawing meet peer standards? We become self-conscious and restrained. Will we be graded on this? We have learned to mistrust our innate ability.

As adults, our response is usually an attempt to conform or please. Sadly what we produce often does not conform to our expectations, so we feel insecure. We search for tools that will help render a reliably acceptable image. A camera is a perfect tool. Drawing classes can provide time honored techniques for producing likenesses. Photo processes and drawing methods are simply training wheels for your vehicle. You reclaim your visual expression when you revisit that point on your own path where all things are possible. We, as social creatures, seek a consensus. We wish to soothe and be soothed. We seek the security of the familiar. We avoid the threatening. Why else would so many people listen to the same boring and mediocre music or watch the same empty entertainment? I probably don’t need to say this. It’s all too obvious. But when I accepted the title of King of Obvious, it became my task to always point out what didn’t need mentioning.

I purchased two of the decorated boxes from the one-man show at Pottery Barn. One box contained twenty-four coffee mugs, the other 144 pine-scented candles. The artworks sat in the living room, the candles on top of the cups. They sat there for years. The kraft color of the box darkened slightly. At first, I turned them occasionally so the other sides could be seen. After a while, I decided on my favorite sides, after which they remained in the same position.

One summer evening, during a powerful storm, an ancient oak tree was uprooted. As it crashed down it took with it the electrical lines. Sparks were flashing on the sidewalk, but the neighborhood was dark and silent. I searched the kitchen drawer for flashlight batteries, but found only matches. I picked them up, along with a knife. After all these years I had a use for pine-scented candles.

I felt my way around the room and sliced easily through the old tape on the box top. I extracted several wax candles, lit them, and placed them strategically to maximize illumination. The aroma of the melting wax was not what I had expected. It did not smell like pine, but more like bees wax and myrrh.

The power outage continued into the heart of the night. When I returned to the box for more candles, I held one lit candle high so I could see if all the candles were the same golden color.

That is when I noticed the inside of the box. It was more brilliantly colored and decorated than the outside.

When the storm was over and the lights finally restored, I took a closer look.

The interior of the carton was more beautifully painted than the exterior. I removed the candles and packing. All sides were resplendent. I set the candle box aside and carefully opened the box that contained the twenty-four coffee mugs. I took out everything. It was equally wonderful on the inside.

I propose the following as a remedy for the negative acculturation that kills the confidence we had as children. When we were children we painted and drew with confidence. Only later did negative criticism and staring eyes flatten our confidence, into conformity. We then could all draw equally poorly, insecurely.

Get a cardboard box. Crawl inside with a flashlight and bring whatever drawing materials you can carry. Separate yourself from the everyday world and enter into a place where you are free to open and accept from yourself whatever can be coaxed onto the brown walls of your tiny cave.

Make yourself a safe place, where you are free to be with yourself. Self criticism is left outside the box. The box is a metaphor for self. When all is said and done, it is what’s inside that counts.