Containment in Boxes

There is something powerful about creating containers and using containers to hold physical things as well as feelings in Art Therapy. The metaphorical container can hold the positive feelings of hope, excitement and the negative feelings of being overwhelming with sadness, loss or anxiety. Anxiety, however, does not always come from negative things; some anxiety comes with the anticipation of the unknown. Even dreams that we don’t know the reality of need containment to stay enjoyable and not out of control. The artist Joseph Cornell used glass boxes to contained stories and dreams of his own. Even those of famous people he admired he would make boxes detailed and filled with objects to represent his ideas or feelings about them (PEM 2014). He created his box art by collecting used items as well as using new and sometime cut out pictures that he would make into a collage inside a box. Each box he made told a story, or expressed a dream or interest (PEM 2014).
Cornell was a very innovative artist who was one of the first to do collage artwork and surrealist artwork in the USA. His social manners were said to be shy and strangely reserved. He grew up and lived in New York, never leaving the city, much alone the state his whole life.
For Cornell, making art offered escape from a world that had forsaken him. He was free only to dream, and dream he did. Although he rarely traveled beyond New York City, he built miniature universes inspired by distant places and times, natural science, astronomy, art, cinema and opera. (Genocchio. 2014) Cornell used his box making to create a world for himself that contained but mad...

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...the client to store their 3D artwork in; this box can be decorated making it itself into a piece of artwork. Open boxes, closed boxes, boxes with object put inside for safe keeping all come to play in the Art Therapy room with the client and Therapist. Art Therapists are responsible for maintaining the frames that allow the client to safely create and explore (Gilroy& Dalley, 1989) How the client choose to use the box to communicate may be seen in various ways but what is true about the box is that it is a needed symbol for many people to help in their process of life. As Art therapists we need to be aware of this powerful symbol for the western man and be sensitive to what it may contain. As we are witness to the client and their art work in their making meaning of their art we are creating a space for them to give a voice to their art (Huckvale &Learmonth 2009).