December 2024
On Boxes
Malvina Reynolds was an American singer-songwriter and political activist who passed away in 1978 at age 77. Truthfully, I hadn’t heard of her until binge-watching Weeds, the mid-2000s Showtime series about a widowed mother in San Diego who turns to selling marijuana to support her family. Her song Little Boxes wittily opened each episode, and to this day, it pops into my mind whenever I hear the word “box”—a word that comes up more often than you might think.
Boxes are everywhere: jewelry boxes, gift boxes, pizza boxes, shoe boxes, cereal boxes, deposit boxes, mailboxes… For thousands of years, they’ve reflected our enduring need to store, protect, and transport.
While Reynolds’ song critiqued the conformity and mass production symbolized by suburban “little boxes,” the box itself has persisted. Even in today’s AI-driven, eco-conscious world, boxes remain essential. From sacred containers in ancient cultures to their indispensable role in modern trade, they are unlikely to disappear.
Artists have long been captivated by their symbolic power. Anselm Kiefer’s Sternenfall used shipping containers to explore cultural loss, while Huang Yong Ping’s Empires juxtaposed mounds of shipping boxes with a giant metal snake, sparking dialogue on power and global commerce. I was fortunate to witness both exhibitions.
On a spring day in 2016, as I walked through Huang’s installation at the Grand Palais, I carried my first Egyptian alabaster creation in a tote bag. Complaining—as I often do—about having to get to dinner before I accidentally broke the fragile contents, I hurried with my friend, artist Melonie Maelstrom, to our host’s nearby home.
Inside the bag was a simple cylindrical box, 20 cm tall, with a half-spherical lid carved from Egyptian alabaster. Its shape, color, and texture symbolized softness to me, while also evoking the idea of encapsulated energy—goods preserved to journey through time.
Our host, a collector, was delighted by the gift and said something along the lines of, “This is perfect. I’ll use it to store my mum’s ashes when she leaves this earth.” Unsure whether to smile or cry, I decided to laugh.
Years later, a gallery-owning friend purchased a lamp from the same Encapsulated series and made a similar remark. What was it about the shape and material that evoked the afterlife? Perhaps the symbolism of ancient Egypt is embedded in our collective consciousness.
Fast forward to 2023, when another song, Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle, brought me full circle. I’d been mulling over an idea to reinterpret ancient Egyptian canopic jars, historically used to store organs for the afterlife. My jars, however, wouldn’t hold physical remains; instead, they would safeguard dreams and wishes yet to be fulfilled, preserving them for this life and the next.
I imagined them carved from Egyptian alabaster but dipped in pigment baths of varying hues to symbolize facets of the self and celebrate the soul’s infinite journey through time.
Just minutes after sketching the concept, my music app, serendipitous or perhaps eavesdropping, played Croce’s lyrics:
‘If I had a box made of wishes and dreams that had never come true,
The box would be empty, except for the memories of how they were answered by you.’
Maybe it’s naïve to see fate in an algorithm’s suggestion, but I took it as confirmation: I needed to bring these canopic jars to life. They became the foundation for COLORAMA, a new series that introduces vibrant hues into my alabaster work. Aura-inspired colors like soul pink, sacral peach red, crown spirit violet, heart (ever)green, and third eye blue bring a fresh dimension to the timeless material.
Long before I began using Egyptian alabaster in my design work, I had seen it in cheap tourist markets, sometimes tinted in vivid colors. The technique of soaking porous marble in pigment baths may have originated in Pakistan, where onyx is similarly treated to mimic semi-precious stones. While I don’t aim to replicate the beauty of amethyst or turquoise, I’m intrigued by how human intervention can add new dimensions to natural materials. Humanity thrives on legends and imagination, after all.
In the end, I hope none of us find ourselves trapped in one of Malvina Reynolds’ “little boxes” in this life or the next.
As for me, my color is purple, a symbol of unfulfilled dreams and spiritual growth.
What’s your color, and what dreams does it hold for you?
Wishing you love, inspiration, big dreams, and courage this December—a season that can be both joyful and lonely.
Colorfully,
Omar
December 2024 playlist and selected links:
