Deconstructing Perfection

Barb Cone

The Playtime store in Arlington, MA, just outside Cambridge, is frozen in time. I doubt much has changed since the 1950s. Customers are expected to step over open boxes and squeeze past stacks of mystery supplies, but the basement is where the real treasures are to be found: feathers in little cellophane packages, ribbons and notions, popsicle sticks, little wooden discs in diferent sizes, silk flowers, Styrofoam, small glittery beads, and my personal favorite,

Kraft paper boxes with lids.

I’ve never figured out what people use them for or make from them, but they come in diferent sizes and are well-made, sturdy, and cheap. The selection depends on the day you’re looking. I started collecting them a few years ago because I liked them as objects. I would add to my stash now and then, and they lived in their big Playtime plastic bags under my worktable. Several times I tried to make something from them. I tried burying them in deep pours on my panels and created 3D collages with them, but I wasn’t happy with the results. In the meantime, I made other work, hoping that some way of using the boxes would occur to me.

Fusion of Work and Dream No. 3, detail Fir, hardware, Velcro, cardboard, steel wire, rust

In time, I created an installation of gessoed and sanded boxes and lids pierced with twine and wax thread. I installed these small pieces with the twine cascading down the wall below them. In a gallery setting, the boxes looked small and humble, and I hope, interesting.

I gessoed and painted some of the crushed boxes with encaustic. I discovered that the highly irregular surfaces were resistant to being painted in this way. The melted wax would often run down the sides and pool on the worktable. Fusing material on cardboard was also a challenge. Setting the crushed boxes on fire was not, I knew, a good idea.

C•artifacts Encaustic Sculpture No. 1 C•artifacts Encaustic Sculpture No. 2 Encaustic, cardboard Encaustic, cardboard 13 x 3.5 x 3 in 23.5 x 3.5 x 3.5 in

C•artifacts Rust No. 1 Rust, cardboard 10 x 10 x 3 in

C•artifacts Rust Sculpture No. 1 Rust, cardboard 10 x 10.5 x 5 in

I’d finally figured out how to work with some of the boxes from Playtime, but I still had bags and bags of them left over. I hauled them up to my Maine studio one summer, hoping for inspiration.

The sticking point for me was that they were just too damn perfect as they were.

Well-made, in that lovely paper bag color, the tops fitting perfectly… it was a case of “how can I possibly improve on perfection?” — often an issue with incorporating found objects once you fall in love with them.

They were taking up precious space in my cramped Maine studio when I looked up and saw my car parked outside the door. I grabbed my keys, tossed a few of the boxes onto the drive, and the rest is history. I ran over boxes in Maine and then in my Massachusetts driveway, asking at some point for my husband to video the process.

You can view RUNNING STUFF OVER WITH MY CAR! at www.bconeart.com/work#/workshops-1-2-3/.

The boxes complained as they went under the wheels, popping and groaning. After a while the lovely boxes were lovely no more.

Fusion of Work and Dream No. 2 Fir, hardware, Velcro, cardboard, steel wire, spray paint 25 x 64 x 24 in

They were slightly gritty after being run over, but in the process of being crushed by a car, they were transformed into 3D, unpredictable abstract shapes. I had no control over how they looked after being crushed, and I had to figure out how to use them just as they were.

Fusion of Work and Dream No. 3 Fir, hardware, Velcro, cardboard, steel wire, rust 29 x 69 x 24 in

I began by experimenting with altering the surfaces of the crushed pieces. About a third of them were spray-painted, another third coated with rust, and the last coated with gesso and hand-sanded to create patterns and marks on the surface.

Using a wooden plank for support, I started attaching the crushed cardboard boxes, building large constructions intended to be hung from the ceiling.

Fusion of Work and Dream No. 1 Fir, hardware, Velcro, cardboard, steel wire, gesso, graphite 30 x 14 x 14 in

Then using some shapes from the crushed boxes that I earlier had traced onto paper, I transferred the drawings to 36 x 36 inch panels I had prepared by doing a base pour of encaustic medium. Using the paper shapes as templates, I then carved into the pour and pressed oil stick into the grooves, creating a thick, deep line.

Self Contained No. 2 Encaustic, oil stick, cradled birch panel 36 x 36 x 1.5 in

Self Contained No. 3 Encaustic, oil stick, cradled birch panel 36 x 36 x 1.5 in

The panels were hung on the walls in and around the ceilinghung constructions during my solo gallery show in Boston at the Bromfield Gallery in the Fall of 2020.

Since I was a small girl following my amateur archaeologist father around in the desert hunting for arrowheads and pieces of pottery, I’ve been interested in the ancient arts of indigenous peoples. In Hawaii and the Southwest, I visited rock carving sites, finding each of the figures unique and powerful. When I got back from one of these trips, spirit figures seemed to want to come into being in my studio. It felt odd but I went with it. I didn’t know how to make them or what they would look like but as the ideas coalesced, I started to gather materials: carving foam, wooden dowels, paper clay, rusting compound, and encaustic. One after the other, the figures came into being; then one day the ideas abruptly stopped coming and I was done with them. Some of figures appeared in a series of encaustic prints I was making at the same time. The melted wax seemed to flow and gather to produce its own imagery. I’m not much for “woo-woo” stuf, as a friend calls it, but in the making of those figures and prints, I felt like I was enabling those ancient spirits to travel outside the spirit realm and come into our world from wherever they may reside.

Pathfinder Encaustic, carving foam, paper clay, rust, wooden dowel 17.5 x 4 x 4 in

Top left painting, Tall Walkers Left sculpture, Beacon Encaustic, oil stick, Washi paper Encaustic, carving foam, paper clay, rust, 20 x 24.5 x .5 in wooden dowel, 19 x 9 x 4 in Bottom left painting, Messenger Middle sculpture, Elder Encaustic, oil stick, Washi paper Encaustic, carving foam, paper clay, rust, 19 x 22.5 x .5 in wooden dowel, 22 x 16 x 4 in

Top right painting, Red Hawk Right sculpture, Gatekeeper Encaustic, oil stick, Washi paper Encaustic, carving foam, paper clay, rust, 20 x 29 x .5 in wooden dowel, 22 x 16 x 4 in Also featured on the Content page.

For Improvisations, another solo show at the Bromfield Gallery in Boston last March, I constructed free-standing pieces from bits and pieces of gessoed balsa and basswood, using a sander for mark making on the various components. In addition to these constructions, eight large, doubled-layered drawings hung on the walls. The digital drawings, on Hahnemuhle paper under photo-based clear overlays, borrowed imagery from the constructions.

It may be because everything feels pretty broken these days that I continue to work with humble, often damaged, materials, but then again it may be because humble, broken, or damaged materials are simply more interesting.

Construct No. 3 Construct No. 1 Balsa and basswood, gesso, hardware Balsa and basswood, gesso, hardware 21 x 13 x 8 in 25 x 13 x 7

About the Author

A transplant from California, Barb has lived in New England since the early 1990s. When asked why she left, she explains she loves trees. Where she grew up, she thought only rich people could have trees. Of course, it’s not quite that simple, but close enough. During one visit to New Mexico, she took a class in encaustic printmaking taught by Paula Roland. When she returned home, she was unsure how to proceed next, and the materials sat on a shelf for a while. Later, several artist friends expressed an interest in encaustic, and Barb dug out her materials to teach a weekend workshop. After the workshop ended, she wanted to learn more about encaustic, and she signed up for a beginning class taught by Tracy Spadafora. She found encaustic quite challenging. Barb sought other instruction and attended the IEA Conference in Massachusetts to learn as much as she could. Encaustic is by far the most versatile of any of the media she has worked with. It lends itself to her intuitive, experimental style of making art. The techniques, textures, unusual surfaces, and substrata are endless. Barb’s work has been in galleries and museums in New Zealand, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, ME, and Boston, where she is represented by the Bromfield Gallery in SOWA, Boston’s Art District. In 2011, she was co-Founder of MassWax, IEA’s New England chapter. In 2016, she received IEA’s La Vendéenne Award for Artistry and was one of the featured artists in Encaustic Art in the 21st Century, Schifer Publishing. You can view Barb’s work at www.bconeart.com www.facebook.com/BarbConeArt