Dream Boxes

Last month, two friends were having birthdays. One of them is Nancy, a fabric artist, who works her day job in the same building I do. What could I make? Putting my mind on it, ideas simmered for a while. I thought of Jim Croce’s song, “Time in a Bottle” talking about a box full of wishes and dreams, as well as the Langston Hughes poem I’d loved as a teenager:

The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes

Bring me all of your dreams,

You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

What about painting a sheet of watercolor paper and making a box? Warming to my inspiration, I found a box template I’d made a couple of Yules ago, pulled down watercolor blocks until I found a 12” x 18” size that fit perfectly, reached for my favorite acrylic paints, pulled out some fabric remnants, and revved up my rubber brayer.

First, I played and painted and printed in Nancy’s favorite color purple. Satisfied with that page done, I thought Grace might like one, too, so I created another one using my favorite fabric spiral design. That’s too me, I thought, looking at the results and began a different one. Once the three sheets dried, I traced and cut out and assembled them. Remembering previous boxes that wouldn’t stay together with double stick tape or mounting squares, I realized this box needed stability to be opened and closed a lot. Rummaging around my studio drawers, I found a container having six colors and two sizes of paper brads (paper fasteners), so I matched each color-themed box with a suitable colored brad. A paper punch helped with the thick 140 lb. watercolor paper and my first model took shape.

Don’t you think art is like that? It’s a problem to solve and you try this or that until it begins to work? As we work in our studios, are we really scientists, trying yet another theory or experiment?

Anyway, with left-over painted paper from each box, I punched out squares, stars, circles, hearts, and odd shapes. These could go inside the box, I thought. But they seemed a little lost in there by themselves. Hmm... What about some scraps of that neat float-y fabric embedded with glitter? Looks cool. More? How about cutting strips of gold or silver swatches? Nice. The fabrics would be the “cloud-cloth” the dreams would be wrapped in. Ah-ha; I was on a roll now. Write your dreams on punched paper! The vague idea had blossomed into The Dream Box.

The gifts were a big hit with my friends and I had an extra one. For me? Perhaps. Like other artists (and women?), I often put myself last. But once the birthdays were over, I decided we all need to nurture ourselves, so I made this one mine, filling it with the fabrics and painted stars, squares, circles, hearts.

And recently, becoming frustrated with ever getting online at home, I finally wrote down some dreams. Technical dreams, of getting a computer and creating a blog, showing my art.

And guess what?

Since you are reading this, some of those dreams have come true.