My Box making Pedagogy

As I start to have completed boxes ready for the sale this weekend, I've thought a lot about the teachers who helped me learn this craft. I'm an oldest child and am usually the person to read the directions on a box or the instructions with a new game...I usually like to have just one way to do things. But after working with 6 or 7 box making teachers, I now have a process of box making that's unique to me and uses little bits from all of them.
It's sort of amazing that I even like making boxes as my first teacher was so horrible. The class was a typical 2-day weekend class at MCBA but the teacher treated it like a final for a graduate course. She judged us on our detail work and told us that our boxes would earn a "C" if she was handing out grades. We were using book cloth to cover our boxes and being beginners, they were riddled with spots of glue everywhere so that our boxes looked slightly speckled. I left that class and thought "well, there's no way this can ever be fun."
A year or so later, MCBA brought in Mindy Dubansky to teach box construction. Mindy is a book conservator at the Metropolitan Museum in NY. Her class was a rare opportunity to meet her in MN so I signed up even though I was wary of the subject. And she changed everything. Mindy is that kind of wonderful teacher who, when a student has a problem, sees a teaching moment. I came away from that class feeling that any box problem could be solved with a little creativity. One of the boxes that she taught was a "magic box" or "Jacob's ladder box"... a box with a lid that can open from the front or back and reveals different sections in the body of the box. I was completely taken with the charm of this box and ended up making 5 or 6 as Christmas gifts that year. And nothing will teach you how to do something well as repetition.

Jacob's Ladder box with lid flipped both ways

In 2003, I spent a few days at PBI with Barbara Mauriello and made 4 different boxes in 4 days. Barbara is also a gifted teacher who has a delightful sense of humor. From her I learned two important lessons: The first is the wonder of rice paste. When she brewed a batch for us to use in class, I reacted silently: "Yeah, I'm never going to bother with cooking paste." But then I used it. Do you know the section in Harry Potter where Hagrid strokes the spine of the Monster Book and it behaves? That's what using rice paste is like. You spread it over your paper and it just does exactly what you want. (I should note that PVA is the best adhesive for gluing your book board.) The second lesson was the joy of mixing patterns and colors. Barbara's own work is a riot of color and pattern and she nudged us into that world on at least one of our boxes in that class. And I've been a convert ever since.

Sliding door box with Barbara Mauriello

I've studied with Julie Chen twice at MCBA and once at a wonderful 10-day session in Haystack. It is her technique of covering boxes that I use for most of my work. There is a bit of cutting and clipping that can be confusing at first, but once you get it, your boxes look beautiful at the end.

A box with drawer and magnetic lid from Julie Chen's class

Artist Jody Williams teaches regularly at MCBA and is famous for her "not empty boxes" (boxes with meaningful content) and working very, very small. At MCBA, she teaches "Little Boxes," "Box Making Made Easy," "Box Making Made Hard" and in one memorable class "Extreme Box Making" (we joked that that was making boxes while sky-diving). Her technique for covering boxes is one that I haven't found anywhere else. It's my opinion that it works best on small boxes and what I love about it is that it allows you to have an interior to your box that is different than your exterior (usually you use one piece of paper for your interior and exterior). Even an empty box has a surprise for you when you open it.

Small boxes from Jody Williams' class

I have a lot of gratitude to these teachers for their encouragement and generosity. I'm also reminded that there is not just one way to do things and that it's always useful to consider how else something can be done. Pretty useful lessons from a box class I believe.