2011-09-28
Emotion Boxes
I was wrapping a wedding present with cut out pictures from glossy magazines. I wanted the wrapping to tell a story about love and commitment using images from a pile of Guardian magazines. I came across the weekly photo competition from last year that dealt with memory and a 12 year old girl had sent in a picture of tin box filled with neatly folded items and a caption that read. "My mother has a box where she keeps things from when I was a baby, some times I open it and look inside and it makes me happy"
This gave me a great idea for a project to do when inspiration was waning, and I wanted to pack away some ideas for another day. I created a set of writing tins. Each one is different and has a dominant emotion linked with them. I started with sorrow. I put in copies of some Rumi poems, clippings from newspapers, a picture of my mother and some Kahlil Gibran. This was about a year ago, and I add to it when I see clippings in the newspapers or brilliant bits of books or plays. When I am writing a play and I need to get into the specific voice of a character, it is perfect to open a box and be able to access some instant emotion. I moved on to other emotions like greed, joy, lust, regret, avarice, and longing. The tins offer a great hands on activity for writers to do when the written word feels like a struggle. It is like packing away some creativity for a rainy day. I went on to embellish the outside of the tins using papier maiche, varnish, fake gem stones, and various pictures. Beware though, this inhibits their ability to stack nicely on your book shelf.
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