Karen Haas' "All You Need is Love" is featured in "The Box Show." (Photo by Lisa Foote) Josh Costa's "The End is Near" is featured in "The Box Show." (Photo by Lisa Foote) Gordon Bryan's work is featured in "The Box Show.
" (Photo by Lisa Foote) Loretta Bresh is among the participants in this year's "Box Show." (Photo by Lisa Foote) Alix Schwartz's "Drakes Beach Reflections" is featured in this year's "Box Show." (Photo by Lisa Foote) Karen Haas' "All You Need is Love" is featured in "The Box Show.
" (Photo by Lisa Foote) What can you do with a simple pine box? Each summer for the past 26 years, that question has confronted 150 artists, whose answers are on display in “The Box Show” at Gallery Route One in Point Reyes Station. This year’s orgy of ingenuity and imagination opened Aug. 3 and runs through Sept.
7, also the date of the final auction and closing party. The premise is that each participating artist gets an identical pine box, about the size of a shoebox, and has until submission deadline — this year, July 29 — to incorporate it into something visually and/or conceptually compelling. Some artists use the box as a diorama.
Some use it as a base for sculpture, or deconstruct it and paint on the panels. Some have gone so far as to grind the box into sawdust to be mixed with paint, or burned the box and blended the ashes into concrete for sculpture. It’s all good — and all within the rules, provided that the box is somehow part of the finished piece.
There are practical size limits, sometimes waived — as in Anne Shaheen’s “Say Cheese!,” an amusing riff on 1950s cheesecake photography — to give everyone adequate space in the compact gallery. The resulting artworks are by turns astounding, arresting, beautiful, baffling, inexplicable and often hilarious. A welcome response to the oppressive glare of the contentious election season, hilarity and wry humor are present everywhere in this year’s “Box Show” — some of it intentionally irreverent, as in Corinne Braun’s “The Bible,” which opens to an image of Jesus exhorting us to be civil.
Silliness is all over the map, as in “Treetop Beerstop” by Peggy Smith, Betsy Bodine Crockett and Cheryl Dobbins, or “Manic Kin” by Barry Chukerman and Susan Bishop. Lily and Jim O’Brien’s “Rock Concert” lives up to its name, and Gary Rosenblatt’s joyful “In the Doghouse” is perfect for a child’s room. Nature, fish and bird themes are always popular in the “Box Show,” including this year’s “Birds in Marin,” five panel paintings by Wendy Taylor, and “Kehoe Beach Memory” by Lee Ann Weber.
Several artists broke their boxes into panels, as did Margo Wixsom in a group called “Seasons of a Mountain Spirit.” Bruce Burtch used his panels to mount photos in “A Few Days in Paris.” High-level craftsmanship is evident throughout the gallery.
“Box Show” veteran Jack Champie has created replicas of iconic architecture such as the Taj Mahal and Golden Gate Bridge. This year, he offers an essentially two-dimensional creation called “Pine Tower.” Nick Palter uses his box as a container for blocks of gorgeous hardwoods, appropriately named “Box of Blocks, Triples.
” David Benoit is another longtime participant in this exhibit, who typically presents complex pieces with hidden drawers, often with heartbreaking stories attached. His piece this year is a little birdhouse (“Hidden”) with room, he says, to install his signature secret compartment. He can also recite the history of every little bit that’s in it.
On a purely design basis, it would be hard to top Steven Hurwitz’s “It Was Just One of Those Days,” a controlled explosion of glorious colors. Kristina Schubeck’s “On the Edge” is another clever design exercise, while audacity is on full display with “The New Beginning,” a pharaoh’s burial mask by Aaron Ludlow. Whimsy and craft meld beautifully in “My Box Turtle Box” by Linda Bresnick.
Look carefully into its lighted interior and you will be astounded at the detail. This year’s entries include riffs on literary classics, such as “Nevermore,” a recreation of Edgar Allan Poe’s study by Amie Buecker. Not-such-classics get an offhand treatment in “Le Rouge et Le Noir,” an installation of red-and-black books by Geraldine LiaBraaten.
It’s both a visual design and a riff on the accidental poetry of book titles. Serenity and poise are running themes throughout this show, from an untitled sculpture by Gordon Bryan to Tina Roberts’ gorgeously rendered temple of Ganesha, the Hindu god of wisdom, success and good luck. Over the years, Roberts has contributed several similar-feeling “Buddha boxes” and many paintings of Marin County scenes.
Her “Ganesha” is among the most elegant pieces in this exhibit. If you have ever been to an art school student show, you’ll have some idea of what you’re in for when you visit — except that the level of concept and execution are far higher at Gallery Route One. The “Box Show” is not merely great entertainment — it’s also a major fundraiser that helps sustain Gallery Route One throughout the year.
For more information about the show, as well as how to bid online, go to galleryrouteone.org/boxshow . Barry Willis can be reached at barry.
[email protected] What: “The Box Show” Where: Gallery Route One, 11101 Highway One, Point Reyes Station When: Through Sept.
7; 11 a.m. to 5 p.
m. Thursdays through Mondays; closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays; auction closing event from 3 to 5 p.m.
Sept. 7 Admission: Free to view in the gallery as well as to register to bid on pieces online Information: 415-663-1347; galleryrouteone.org/boxshow.
