Small Worlds: The Box Show
The Box Show is an annual fundraising event of Gallery Route One, a community nonprofit in Pt. Reyes Station. What a brilliant idea. The gallery makes 150 wooden boxes and gives them to 150 people to make art, which they sell at an auction that typically raises more than $20,000. They have more people clamoring to make boxes than the gallery space will accommodate, so you have to enter a lottery to participate as an artist, and once you’re in, you can never skip a year or you lose your spot. After putting my name in the hat several times, I finally scored a place six years ago, and have been boxing annually ever since. Here are a few of my favorites.
Pup-pet Show (2022)
In honor of our beloved pup-pets, Milo (playing Punch) and Kevin (the always delighted audience).
The front
The back
Musée des Beaux Arts (2021)
This is a love letter to a painter, a poet, and a pet. Richard Diebenkorn would be 99 this year. His Ocean Park paintings speak my language. So does the poetry of W.H. Auden, who died 49 years ago. In “Musée des Beaux Arts” he observes that even in the face of miracles and tragedies, “the dogs go on with their doggy life.” Our first dog, Milo, a black and white Jack Russell terrier, would be 36 this year. One of the best things he taught me is that seeing is knowing where to look.
Send in the Cloud (2019)
Somewhere in Italy, a window opens, and a bit of Magrittean meteorological magic moves in.
Winter Journey (2017)
I’ve always loved Aspen trees, and especially the “eyes” that form on their bark. While spending a week at the Aspen Music Festival, I started thinking about creating a miniature Aspen grove out of Aspen branches. As I worked on it, repainting the dried brown branches with white bark, I decided to set the trees in a wintry landscape with the footprints of an unseen traveler traversing the snow—the world evoked by one of my favorite pieces of music, Schubert’s haunting song cycle, Winterreise (Winter Journey).