Who are your influences?

 In the movie The Commitments, the main character tries to assemble an R&B band, and he weeds out the applicants with one very simple question, “who are your influences?”  Regardless of the subject; music, art or anything else; the answers to that question tell a lot about the respondent.  This is the first in what will probably be a long periodic series on the influences on my textile art, not only who, but what as well.                                                       

Today’s influence could really be called more of an inspiration, but I suppose I’m splitting hairs on definitions.  Back in college, I got around to reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck.  The dedication ended up inspiring me and influencing my artwork: 

                Pascal Covici 

                Dear Pat,

You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, “Why don’t you make something for me?”

                I asked you what you wanted, and you said, “A box.”

                “What for?”

                “To put things in.”

                “What things?”

                “Whatever you have,” you said.

Well, here’s your box.  Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full.  Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts – the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.

                And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.

                And still the box is not full.                   

Pascal Covici was Steinbeck’s publisher and friend, and Steinbeck had carved a wooden box for the East of Eden manuscript.  This dedication struck a chord with me.  I love the idea of a box being symbolic for greater things, a container representing so much more than what could be put in it physically.   

At the time I read the book, I was absorbed in my ceramics classes, and I started to make clay boxes.  I thought about decorating the insides as much as the outsides.

 image and designs copyright 2016 RPS

I started to collect antique boxes, and continue to collect.

image copyright 2016 RPS

Now that I am into art quilts and textile art, I am making fabric boxes, and indeed, I still embellish the insides of the boxes, reflecting the outside decoration. 

 image and designs copyright 2016 RPS

The box form lends itself to so many variants, and I don’t think that I will ever run out of ideas for them.  I cannot make them fast enough to keep up with the ideas in my head.  As I hit the art fair circuit soon, I hope others will take delight my treasure boxes.