The box

If the box is the metaphor for convention, all thing with the grain, everything mainstream, conforming...etc...etc....which of these represents your relationship with it? Or do you need a whole new representation?

(You can click on each row to enlarge if need be)


Please e mail further suggestions for me to add to the box bank if a) none of these pinpoint your exactly relationships with it and/or b) you just feel like drawing some more boxes.
xxx

Comments

  1. Claire Potter23 January 2010 at 10:38

    I fluctuate between being outside the box most of the time and hateful towards everyone who is inside it, to being inside the box and colouring in without going over the edges in specific areas of my life, like...well, colouring in really - very anal in this department despite hating myself for it and wanting to do messy, free-flowing art), to having too many sherries and smashing up my and everyone else's boxes with a sledgehammer and explosives xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Molly Potter23 January 2010 at 11:32

    No charge
    x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mark In Mayenne23 January 2010 at 12:54

    I'm sure you could think of a picture for me, conveying my idea that the box is a state of mind. :) Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sandra Rowney23 January 2010 at 13:32

    My absolute favourite box image is one made by Cornelia Parker in 2004 which she called "Heart of Darkness".
    http://www.genetologisch-onderzoek.nl/wp-content/image_upload/cornelia-parker.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  5. typejunky23 January 2010 at 14:12

    I sort of orbit it, looking at the convention, wondering why people want a box like that, or wondering if I'd be happier in that box. I'd better add I'm orbiting in my own little box that I've made which is my set of conventions. Sometimes at business meetings with those particularly greasy armarni clad not-really-creative marketing types, I will wear a facsimile of their box, but I've usually scribbled on it somewhere, or written a bad word on it (i.e. not shaved for a week, or not cleaned my shoes, or just have a bad-boy hangover on purpose) just to prove that although it looks like their box, that they say they think outside, but it isn't. My box is usually black inside too, and has a blinking LED in it. I like black, the LED is just there to get on my nerves, it's red.

    ReplyDelete
  6. sue rabong23 January 2010 at 15:09

    i thought i was outside, but now i'm not so sure....i ridicule it, but i am a part of it. my germanic/protestant work ehic upbringing keeps me firmly inside it. i give EVERYTHING to the box and feel guilty if i am doing something outside it. the boxes have changed throughout my life and have always controlled my every thought...hit a nerve there molly-well done!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Molly Potter24 January 2010 at 12:00

    Molly Potter pyschotherapy.com happy to serve!

    Wow. Metaphor City is thrilling!

    I forgot to say what my relationship with the box is.

    For the first 25 years I was totally unaware of the box. My world was my world - full of exciting explorations - in the garden, in my projects, in my making things, in my fascinations, in my head. I didn't have the time, capacity, capability or inclination to notice any boxes. This went on into early adulthood. I didn't know you were meant to dress up smart for interviews for example (thank you Claire - that box you showed me got me the job). Then I became aware of the box as more and more got displayed and offered to me - sometimes kindly (save her!) but more often with a snide disapproval and assumption that I really must be stupid because 'everyone wants to be in the box surely?'...but she clearly is incapable of getting in it. And then I became intimidated by the box because I just could not get in it but it's strength, through pure numbers, made me feel a bit bullied.

    But now, I let the box laugh at me but I laugh back in its face - with love! Poor box is more fragile and shallow than it would like to think. It has safety in numbers alone.

    I'll send my invoice to myself.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Molly Potter24 January 2010 at 12:10

    Claire - I think us Potter-kids (and dad) have struggled with the box in a way that has made us outcasts at times. Makes us a bit understandably defensive - like many people in minorities!

    Molly - will you shut up with that new catchphrase.

    Sandra -that sculpture is amazing. I could happily get in a box like that and never come out.

    Mr T - I wish I was actually conscious of my scribbling like you are. Mine's accidental. What are the rules in your little orbiting black box with an LED light to irritate you?

    Sue - let's smash the box and set you free -I'll have to know what I'm hunting for, so give me clear directions and I'll shoot it for you.



    Codgi - that looks like a man with a box for a head. Easily drawn - will add.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Eric24 January 2010 at 13:58

    My box at the moment is a box filled up with thousands of other boxes (I'm making mosaics).

    In the context of your post though, 'the box' how most see it is not the concern to me it once was.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Carol25 January 2010 at 11:17

    I understand that for some people there is a box. I understand that sometimes I have to act within the confines of what is acceptable in that person's box but I completely believe that the box is a state of mind. My work is to try and expand it to the point it explodes....make people really look at it, reflect on it, is it really so great? Show them what is available to them when they don't live within it and help them to realise that they don't have be in a box at all. Viva la revolution!!

    C x

    ReplyDelete
  11. typejunky25 January 2010 at 16:12

    The rules are whatever takes my fancy. The red light must be something or other. An orange light started blinking earlier. Not seen that before.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Molly Potter26 January 2010 at 18:35

    Eric - being free from box concern is my ultimate aspiration.

    Carol - how do you get people to do that at work...that sounds fascinating. Blog about it perhaps?

    Nick - rules that take your fancy don't sound like rules at all...just whims. Fraud Boxster.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sandra Rowney27 January 2010 at 11:22

    Cornelia Parker blew that box up. What a woman! She has a piece in Tate Modern where she got a steamroller to run over things. Now there's an idea of the box.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I LOVE comments......

Popular posts from this blog

Breaking the blog spell...

My beautifully captivating and mesmerising big sister cast a spell on me. It was a spell that would make me sit in up in the clouds and write a blog every single day...mostly for her benefit - as she dutifully and kindly read and commented on each one. Being easily coaxed into most things and liking the idea of a blog meant this spell was fine...for a while. Then.....I was sitting minding my own business (I look quite funny when I do that - most people do) when a huge green common-sense elf wearing red hotpants came and waved his wand at me declaring, "Writing a blog every day when you work full time, have two youngish children and a million projects on the go at any one time, is a little silly. You can waffle on and on about just about anything and do have about forty draft blogs saved ready to run, but it's probably best you aim more for quality than quantity and only write about slightly more fully formed ideas! After all, less IS more." I was released -although I fear...
Read more

51 quirky features of Norwich Cathedral that you can go and find

Image
I have always loved Norwich Cathedral as it is beautiful and atmospheric. But it turns out that it is also loaded with a hotchpotch of history as building started in 1096. The more I learn about it, the more fascinated I become. So here are my recommendations for what to look out for should you ever visit the cathedral. 1) The Elizabethan grave of Thomas Gooding Thomas was a mason of the cathedral. He paid a fair amount of money to be buried upright because he believed this would give him an advantage come judgement day. At the base of his memorial is a typical of its time, poignantly death-focused inscription: 'All you that do this pass bye Remember death for you must dye As you are now even so was I And as I am so shall you be Thomas Gooding here do staye Wayting for God's judgement day' If you look at the skeleton, you will see there is poor knowledge of anatomy. 2) The grave of the baby that died before she was born . I have been told that this is be...
Read more

Anal Retention Test

Image
I was clearing out some old files on my computer and came across this. I wrote it in about 1999 (back when people still wrote cheques) predominantly to take the p*** out of a teaching colleague that was the opposite end of this particular spectrum to me! He took it as the silly, light-hearted bit of fun it was meant to be, but he did actually score nearly full marks. We are still friends and he's a headteacher now. Just shows you how far a bit of anal retention can take one. *************************************************** DEFINITION A popular term for “anal retentive personality,” a personality marked by excessive orderliness, extreme meticulousness, and often suspicion and reserve. According to psychoanalysis, an anal personality is formed in early childhood as a result of efforts to control bowel movements. *************************************************** Now tell me, does anal retention *increase with age? *really make life easier? *have very strong links to the need to b...
Read more