What's inside your box?

Exhibit A

To think outside the box. A cliché for sure. Because most of the people who tell you to think that way have no idea how to do it themselves.

Google "think outside the box" and you'll find the Wikipedia entry at #1 and a number of less significant explanations following. But the Wiki entry pretty much summarizes what we think we know about the phrase – that it grew out of a management consultant's application of a one hundred year old puzzle involving a pictorial box – connect the dots using just four straight lines. See exhibit "A". This drawing is considered your "box".

But I had never meant to refer to this box at all. When I appropriated the idiom for iThinkOutsideMyBox™, the box was metaphorical – a box full of education, religion, citizenship, morality, spirituality and subsequent beliefs – a magical box – your box of thoughts. Or as one young painter gamely stated, "The box is your brain".

But there would present itself a conundrum: How can one think outside one's box when that box has been prescribed and constructed by all the people we know in  real life – primarily the people we respect? Teachers, preachers, parents, et al. Doesn't that present a conflict? Doesn't it mean going against all we know?

Ahahhh...

And so the work around is to make the box disappear – at least temporarily, by presenting an opportunity that seems attractive, yet is so outside one's normal activity that it makes no sense to do it in the first place – thus making perfect sense.

That way, whenever anyone sits down with us in a park, or a subway concourse to paint, they've already started thinking outside their box. Voilà. I don't have to teach them a thing because they've already made a conscious decision to do it anyway – just by joining us. After that, the actual paintings are a lot less important than the activity itself. Inside of a little 3"X3" square of cardboard, I've seen people paint the thumbnails of their futures, the promises of their love, the optimism in their work that was impossible to communicate in memo form, or just the feeling of the moment unsung.

Later this summer I'll be channeling #iTOMB at a creative festival which will also include a professor of Psychology focused on creativity, a neuroscientist who brain images creative activity, a best-selling author who defined a generation, as well as the founder of the Alzheimers Poetry Project and others – a wildly disparate creative group.

And we will all be bringing a box – a box with a gift inside. The gift to think outside of our own disciplines and see what the others have brought to the party:)

Valentine Flash: Rubulad!

#iThinkOutsideMyBox @ Rubulad!

Rubulad! It's a dance party! CLick the link. It's an art party! 

It's food and spirits and gypsies and hooded provocateurs and in Williamsburg, no Bushwick, NO, it's secret, and DJs and live music and projections and reflections and rejections [NOT] maybe introspections and iThinkOutsideMyBox™. ClIck the link. CliCk the link. ClicK the link and come paint your Valentine dreams - or not. #iTOMB is proud to join with the Rumulad caravan for 'a spy in the warehouse of love' party. CLick the link before Saturday, 9pm til late/early. 10 clams/early, 20 clams/late. CliCk the link. Say 'going'. Say 'going'. No 'maybe'. cLick the link! Learn the secret heartshake:)

iThinkOutsideMyBox™ Prints

Happy Handmade Valentines

Happy Handmade Valentines Day from iThinkOutsideMyBox™. Order a limited edition handmade print or card (with envelope) for just $25 or 4 for $60 (shipping included in the US*). Each original artwork will be printed on high quality matte paper, hand cut and mounted to cardboard then mounted again to a folded card or backing paper for prints. A more economical quality than our archival fine art prints, these are still extremely handsome, high quality, handmade works.

$25 = 1 card/print. $40 = 2 cards/prints. $60 = 4 cards/prints

Include your print request information (specify title and print or card) and address on the PayPal form

*Orders placed by Monday will be shipped Monday to arrive by Valentines' weekend in the US.

#iTOMB Nadette 12.25

#iTOMB Bev 07.21.14

#iTOMB Joyce 08.20.14

iTOMB.Dani 10.10.12
This image will be custom cut and painted to reveal the corrugation as shown. Really fun:)

#iTOMB.Cyndi.05.26.14

"What a great idea!"

#iTOMB Sammy 01.09.1

"Today I took a moment to step out of my box and paint where the artist paints. And it became a breath of fresh air, something from my regular norm. You see, I could have been busy just passing by, but my curiosity took me... viewing the collective art of "iThinkOutsideMyBox" and then painting... it created a moment for me. 

Once I started to paint, eventually others then came around to paint or view instead of simply passing by or remaining distant onlookers. One took a moment out of her life to paint. Before and after, another was engaged and smiling about this art. 

We were all vibrant participants, brush stokes on this canvas of life called 14th street New York lobby area of the 8th ave subway. We all took a breath together, breathing in life and exhaling the breeze now made easier through this refreshment of art. Our marks will be left there. 

Just as David is leaving his mark by not allowing life to define him, but defining life through art." 

 – One Life - More Joy - The POWER of ART By Artist M

14 St & 8 Ave Metro

I spend my days awash in compliments – awash in comments like this. And then some days take home $10 or even less. There's the photographer who spends 40 minutes painting and discussing art who leaves 12 cents - and yet she regards herself as an artist as well and wants to be paid for her work. Everyone compliments me. Some even congratulate me. Still, I have no idea what that really means. Congratulations? For what? "What a great idea!", they say. But is it really a great idea if it can't support itself? Maybe it still is. – A gallery owner on a Chelsea street corner yells disparagingly into his iPhone, "Ideas? Ideas? Fuck ideas! Fuck 'em. You tell, (insert artist's name here), I need fucking product! Paintings Goddammit! Not fucking ideas! Nobody buys ideas!" 

Ask how much someone will pay for your idea and you'll think more than twice before telling anyone anything again – the non-existent values society gives to brilliant ideas. The idea of electric light was worth nothing - but the lightbulb? That paid the bills. Today the app that actualizes the idea pays the bills, not the idea.

And yet, this is one idea I own, and actualize - the idea to let anyone paint on the spot , which they love – and bask in the glory of the fabulous results we're getting. It's quite possibly the best idea I've ever had. But I don't have the resources to keep giving it away.

"There's a fine line between desperation and intimidation", someone said to me during my Holiday push for funding. We fell 30% short of our $1000 goal. And so to those of you who are tired of me screaming for support, here are some other things you can do to help us through the winter, other than telling me what a brilliant idea it all is (which I still do appreciate:).

1) Donate for a print: Online, click here and choose two for $100, or go to the Shopping Cart. Onsite, look at our more competitively priced "artist proofs" at $10, $20 and $30.

2) Spread the news: If I hear, "That should be on the news - or in a museum" one more time, without a reasonable way to get it there, help me out. Send a letter and picture to your favorite channel, paper, magazine or museum and let them know what you think about #iTOMB. And if you know editors or curators, please pass their names along to me - I'll contact them.

3) Arts Grants: Unfortunately, we did not make the shortlist for the ArtPlace grant program this year but they were looking for more mature projects and we'll get more shots at that later. In the interim time, please help me keep abreast of grants, fellowships and residencies we might be well suited for - or nominate us for the MacArthur Genius Award:).

I thank again all of the many people who do support us nicely through print donations and pictures of presidents other than Washington on-site - but for the rest of you, especially the students and teachers at the $40,000 a year tuition art schools in this city – If you love a creative idea, support it. Financially. Because someday, another great idea will be yours and you'll have some very serious student loans to care for - you'll appreciate being paid rightly for your work.

#JeSuisCharlie

#JeSuisCharlie, for Anna, 01.11.15

With deepest respect for the writers and artists at Charlie Hebdo, we see the world as you did. #iThinkOutsideMyBox™ was founded on the concept of freedom of expression and will continue #EngagingThePublicInPublicArt℠ so long as we are alive on this planet to do so. Long live Charlie Hebdo!

"Another year over, a new one's just begun" - John Lennon

"I don't even know where to begin.", one painter writes. "I was so intrigued by what you do [with #iThinkOutsideMyBox] that I needed to know more!! Art has always been a wonderful way to express yourself and now you are engaging the public to express themselves without even knowing it!!! Amazing!!!!!!!!!!" 

And so closes our second full year with the project that even I have a hard time explaining. I'm always amazed that the letters and comments I receive from participants do so much better a job of explaining what we do than I. And so I've learned to collect those observations and impressions, like a third party researcher, to teach myself what the iThinkOutsideMyBox™ project does best - and that's beginning to help me structure a narrative for where things go from here on out.

One of our key tasks, completed this fall, was our application for the Artplace America grants, a national grants program designed to 'invest in creative placemaking projects that are committed to strengthening the social, physical, and economic fabric of their communities'. Which I am learning, we do very well.

In applying for the Artplace grants, a program that will distribute $10 million divided amongst 40 projects in 2015, I was asked to place our activity alongside the artistic community that currently exists in Chelsea and more specifically, the High Line, and describe what makes us unique and valuable to the community in a way that other public art programs do not - and the answer is simple.

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Highlights from  2013 - 2014: From remixed classics [The Scream*] to modern, street, outsider, landscapes  character studies, surrealism to abstract expressionism, nary a day goes by when I'm not absolutely humbled by what people create.

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   *Boudhas [Morocco] 09.02.14                    Cecile 07.29.14                                         Anthony 12.02.14

          

   Jestianna 05.20.13                                     Alden 08.30 14                                          Illiana 09.16.14

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We are the only community engagement program that involves the public creatively through the making of art - by encouraging anyone and everyone to express themselves in any way they like. And while the High Line and galleries in Chelsea occasionally present interactive exhibitions, 99% of their work is directed towards a viewing audience, not a creating one, not an interactively involving one. But we are.

That is why we exist. It is the only reason we exist: to further self expression in a world that increasingly suppresses it - by engaging the public in public art℠. But another thing I learned from our grant application process is that, for grants of this size [$50,000 and above], the grantor wants to see that you have already built a support base. And that's where the public, comes in again. With your help we need to show a steady public support stream through print orders and our other outside the park activities like museums, non-profits and schools to prove we're a viable operation that truly does serve a public need.

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Expressions & Affirmations: He wasn't really filled with rage but the humor inspired a painting:) Rarely having the opportunity to do whatever they want, people mostly opt for fun once they get over the idea that we offer no direction.

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   Jon 11.10.14                                               Jocelyn [England] 10. 27.14                      Alexa 10.19.14

          

   Saffron [#England] 10.19.14                       Susie 10.25.14                                           Katie 10.19.14

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Each donation of $100 is also an order for two (2) prints of your choosing and a small step forward to building a future for this project in New York City. Our goal this holiday season is 10 donations of $100 each. Beating that goal will see us through to 2015 when iThinkOutsideMyBox™ begins its first museum artist in residence program.

Museum quality prints

All giclée prints are 3"X3" and lasered on acid-free, water colour paper, mounted on shadow-raised, corrugated cardboard, affixed to an 8.5"X11"acid-free, water colour backing sheet - ready to DIY frame in a standard 8"X10" frame. Prints are numbered as each is a handcrafted original and signed and dated. 

To order, just select from those shown on this post, or pick any from the galleries in the lefthand sidebar of this site. Then send me an email with the print IDs and pay through Fractured Atlas (tax deductable) or PayPal (standard). Please add $10 for shipping and handling in the US - $20 overseas. Orders will be processed and shipped the week of December 15th to make sure everyone has their prints by Christmas (with time for framing).

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Impressionism to Expressionism: "I don't paint what I see, I paint how I feel it makes me see." - Lysle

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    Saze "Brooklyn Bridge" 10.08.14               Yuliana 11. 07.14                                      Tanya 08.01.14

          

    Romi 09.30.12                                          Lysle 10.16.14                                           Jan [Australia] 09.06.13

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In keeping with our promise to never sell the original artwork, prints are a way to keep the ideas in circulation as well as provide an income stream for the project. From the beginning I knew the project would never work as a business. "What do I do? Charge $5 to make your own souvenir? Or try to get rights releases from 4 year olds?" No, neither, because treating it like a business takes away from the immediate lure of the project. 

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Surrealism Explained: The first painting below was made by a woman in her late twenties named Olivia who described herself as a painter by occupation. She spent nearly 90 minutes on the work. The painting in the same row to the right was done at the same time by an eight year-old girl who simply watched Olivia and reframed the techniques she saw - taking the same time but without any instruction or conversation. Feelings are communication too.

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    Olivia [Israel] 07.25.14                             Denise 05.27.14                                          Lila (Qumathur) 07.25.14

          

    Anon 06.21.14                                          Tao 08.28.13                                              Stephanie 03.28.13

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When people walk up and learn that all the paintings are made by visitors, and then see that they can make one as well, that's an invitation, an invitation to be part of something. Not a trick with a hidden price tag. Activities like this need to be priceless, because that builds communities - communities where all are equal.

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Hearts & Flowers: Of the items painted most frequently, hearts and flowers follow closely after 'eyes'. One might say these are not particularly imaginative subjects, but one look into each category (on left) proves exactly the opposite.

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   Jordan 07.11.13                                           Joyce 08.20.14                                       Dani 10.10.12

          

   Annie 07.15.14                                          Morganne & Zoya  07.21.14                    Abby 07.13.14

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Feel free to browse the categories on the left and choose any image to print. Click to stop the slideshow and see individual images. To order, just note the image ID below each one and send me an email with images and shipping info before transferring payment.

I'll be adding still images here in the next days to make it easier to see our best.

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New York: AS many our painters are visitors to New York it's entirely understandable that they paint the town red, or any of a million other colours if they like.

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  Enolia 09.12.14                                           Cindy (Germany) 07.19.14                       Jan (Australia) 09.06.13

          

   Javiera (Chile) 12.23.12                              Stephanie 08.01.14                                    Vanessa 09.27.14

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