Paintings. Lovely paintings of old, stored-away boxes. Yes, I am a sucker for old boxes filled with forgotten treasures, and apparently so is American artist Jeanne Ludeke. Here are her words behind this most recent series:
“I come from a family of builders and makers. My father built the house I grew up in and my mother remained in that house until she passed away in 2014. While sorting through her belongings with my brothers and sisters, I became interested in the cardboard boxes my mother had used to store and preserve what was important to her. The history of what each box had once held was recorded with her script on the lids and sides of the boxes. What she had saved and valued and how it was kept spoke of her connection to our family and her relationship with the material world. For me, the boxes became a metaphor for the transience of home, family and the impermanence of things. These box paintings evolved from a series of paper houses that were painted as observational studies. They embodied the idea of home and a sense of place, but also the temporary nature of the structure of our families.”
Beautiful.
Jeanne Ludeke’s boxes are fascinating. Everyone stores secrets in boxes. The concept of the stored family boxes is intriguing to all of us. Do you ever wonder what your children will do when they open your boxes? Will they read the diary you wrote in college and kept all these years? Will they read the precious letters? Will they be unaware until then of the importance of letters when you were young? These boxes are a lovely reminder of lives in storage! Maria