The Art of Relationship Outside the Box

Visual arts applied in a therapeutic manner is powerful as a tool for breakthroughs in a workshop setting. Empty & Meaningless: the Box Project takes the that power one more step - it shares the breakthroughs of its participants with the public-at-large through installations and public events - taking the conversation of love to a societal level.

(PRWEB) January 17, 2004 --With Valentine's Day fast approaching (isn't it still Christmas?), our minds begin to drift to thoughts of love. Romantic love, unconditional love parents have for their children, the fitful love children have for their parents, past loves, present loves, love lost, and love won. Even self-love?

And in love there is one thing common to all - relationship - revealing our desire to be known as we are, for who we are, and to be cherished in spite of that!            

This desire to be known, and to know, to be free to express and accept love, is the basis of the 3 ½ year old community arts project, Empty & Meaningless: the Box Project (E&M).

What an odd name for a project about love and relationships!
Indeed. Let's examine the name.

Empty & Meaningless. There is a state of being Yoga masters, monks, and Jerry Garcia extol as THE place to be when you are intent on shifting your experience of the world - a state of emptiness where nothing exists other than, well, existence itself. In the meditative world it is, metaphorically speaking, the blank canvas of the heart and mind.

And in this state of emptiness, the meditator (is that even a word?) has an opportunity, for a short while, to let go of all the meaning she has about life and relationship. Bringing her to a perfect, meaning-less, state of mind and experience.

It is in this place where she now has the power to create something fresh - a new point of view - where she adds the meaning deliberately, layering one desired feeling or expression on another, creating a new picture of a thing - in the case of E&M, a new viewpoint on a particular relationship.

The Box. A paper gift box (the kind in which Freddies wraps the watch you?ve bought for your son) is the canvas used by the everyman artists who participate in the projects under the E&M banner. A 3D canvas, if you will.

The box represents a relationship between the box artist (everyman/woman) and another person in their lives - past or present (Mom, dad, sister, brother, lover, bully, brat, etc.).

In this project, the inside of the box remains empty, representing a state of being empty and meaningless?

Project. Well, E&M started out as a project. In a class. It's purpose was to help the founder of E&M, Adrienne Fritze, recover the action of creating art (art-ing - a new word) - a thing she abandoned at 16 - and to develop a new pattern of art-ing by including others in the creation of her art. Community art, as it were.

Back then it was called "Everyday is Christmas" in honor of her children. (Each day when Adrienne awoke to her children she experienced a profound joy, a joy that she remembered experiencing as a child on Christmas morning. It was like she was a front of a mountain of gifts, clasping her hands in delight as she prepared herself for the discovery of whatever treasures lie inside the wonderfully wrapped boxes...)

At first, Adrienne invited her family to decorate the boxes, and then she invited the people in her class. And when the class was over, she invited others in her life to "do a box".

In time, the project became a program of many projects. The work became thematic - exploring topics that included schools, teens, peace, family, mothers & daughters, imprisonment, choices.

As the project grew, Adrienne created steel sculptures to house and publicly display the works - reedy constructions whose whole purpose was to showcase the personal expressions of others. These became community expressions about particular topics - a group statement about the freedom of expression, the individual and societal nature of healing, the experience of combining your voice, with another's, with another's with another's to form an atmosphere for transforming the building blocks of society - our interpersonal relationships.                

Empty & Meaningless: the Box Project

Hundreds of people have participated in E&M, some of whom thanked Adrienne for letting the project come alive, allowing it to follow its own path as a form of healing?

Art as healing.

E&M is now finding its stride in prison. Adrienne leads box project workshops in drug and alcohol rehab and parenting training programs at critical moments where a deeper investigation of the inmate's relationship is needed to create an opening for a real breakthrough.

One program manager wrote of the effects of the project, "Through it they [inmates] are able to access buried feelings and feel safe doing so?I have seen clients resolve grief issues, address relentless resentments and hope for a better future by using their box as a vehicle for communicating with their loved ones, for achieving self forgiveness and forgiving others."

And in the process of providing this space for healing, the artist is being healed. Such is the outcome of community works?

And now, Empty & Meaningless: the Box Project is being shown, as a collective exhibit, at the Alberta Arts Pavilion on 2315 NE Alberta. The show opens on Last Thursday, January 29th and runs through February 25th. Gallery Hours are NOON to 6:00 p.m., and on LAST THURSDAY, NOON to 9:00 p.m.

The show includes several of E&M?s past and continuing projects, including:
CACOPHONY - the original steel sculpture and a selection of the very first boxes created by folks from many walks of life

RAGING RIVER: TEEN PERSPECTIVES - a collection of 8th Grade expressions about the influential relationships in their lives

TO THE WORLD WITH LOVE - an ongoing project that looks at what we say it takes to create peace and empowerment in the world, particularly in the wake of 9/11.

RAZOR WIRE PHOENIXES: AN INTRODUCTION - included in the exhibit are selected boxes from the work Adrienne has done with women inmates at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville OR, and includes plans for the local and international expansion of Razor Wire Phoenixes.

Come share in the discoveries E&M Box Project - see the expressions of people like you taking on what's newly possible in their lives.