Art-in-the-Box POPS at The Artists’ Gallery
TAG Artists Crank it Up at the 11th Annual Box Show & Silent Auction
Gallery Downtown hosts a unique show, The “Box Show.” Artists from the community and members of the gallery get to show off their works of art through a box. From bird houses to spiders, President John F. Kennedy to Vincent Van Gogh, and anything from plants and fruit to light bulbs and eyeballs, these artist showcase what they can produce from a wooden box.
The Artists’ Galley located at 4 East Church Street, in Frederick, Md. hosts its 11th annual “Box Show,” which is hosted every year around the same time. This year’s show showcased more artists and a variety of artworks that ranged anywhere from paintings to sculptures. Their inspiration is basically anything that comes to their mind, with no direction, genre, or theme, artists can express themselves in any which way as long as the box is incorporated somehow.
The opening reception was on March 3rd from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The show ran all through March and the closing reception was on March 31st from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The gallery hours are Friday through Sunday from 12 noon to 5 p.m.
“During the week there isn’t that much traffic downtown but during the holidays we are open many more hours and evenings,” said Marc Weinberg, a member of the Artists’ gallery for two years now.
Over 70 artists, which include members and guest artists from the community, are given a nine by nine inch wooden box which is made by one of the members of the gallery, Dan Stevens, and are asked to turn it into art. The boxes are burned, flayed, splayed, layered, reconstructed, deconstructed, painted, sculpted, etc.
“And like magic they are turned into wondrous and amazing works of art,” said Shelley Stevens, president of The Artists’ Gallery.
Members donate their artwork to the gallery and the boxes get put up for auction. It’s a silent auction, and all bids start at $40 and increase by $5 every bid.
The “Box Show” is considered The Artists’ Gallery fundraiser that benefits the gallery. Members choose whether to donate 50 percent or 100 perfect of the auctions proceeds to the gallery.
All through March people can during the gallery hours to place a bid of their choice on any of the pieces of artworks that they like or they can just look around and not bid at all. The gallery holds about 100 people at one time and at the closing reception once the biding has ended the highest bidder gets to take home the art they bid the highest for.
Every piece of art has its own auction.
Artist can make their own use of the box and do whatever they want to the box, they don’t even have to use the box as long as they incorporate at least an element of the box. There is no theme for the boxes; artists are allowed to do anything.
For example, one of the artists didn’t use the actual box; instead they painted a picture of a girl holding a box.
Member Marc Weinberg made an iBox which is a box filled with plastic balls that resemble eye balls and has a cord that sticks out of the box to charge your iPhone.
When putting the show together, there is a hanging committee which hangs and places the artworks. The artworks are not categorized by subject matter, color or shapes. The hanging committee puts the artworks up by eye and just sees what goes good together; therefore, it has a certain flow.
The next show is not a box show, but paintings and works of art by gallery members. This show will be from April 6 through the 29th and features two of the members from the gallery artworks–“Artifacts” which are paintings and objects by Chris Noel and “Life Changes,” which are paintings by Jennifer de Angelo Baxter. The Artists’ gallery holds shows every month of their member’s artwork year round.
The member age range of The Artists’ Gallery ranges from the youngest artist being 30 to the oldest at 70. To become a member of The Artists’ Gallery one must fill out an application with their portfolio of work. Then there is a juring process and the board selects the artist to come in and demonstrated their work. There are 18 members total at the gallery, the most they have ever has is 24. The gallery was established in 1990 has been around for more than 20 years.
