One On One With The Artists Behind The Boxes

Year after year, Arlene Bujese waits for August—for when they arrive.

No larger than 18 inches in any direction, they come from far and wide—within the confines of the East End—representative of an artist’s vision, passion and creativity. They are painted, welded, sculpted, built-up, built-down, deconstructed and reconstructed, with one commonality.

They are all, or once were, a cigar or wine box.

“You always wonder what you can do with a box, try to anticipate what hasn’t been done and think it can’t be possible,” said Ms. Bujese, chair of the Box Art Auction, an annual benefit for East End Hospice, now in its 14th season, being held on Saturday at the Ross School Center for Well Being in East Hampton. “And every year these artists do it, always with sheer beauty and an element of surprise.”

Last year, the work of 84 artists helped raise $69,000 for the hospice’s general fund, which provides care for terminally ill patients and their families on the North and South forks. With 95 artists on this year’s roster, Ms. Bujese is expecting even more.

“2013 was our best year ever,” Ms. Bujese said. “I was optimistic, and when people would talk about the economy, I said, ‘I know what we’re doing and it’s good.’ But it was nice to see. Each year we’re building and building. It’s not going down.”

Box: “You Slither, I Fly”

Materials: Cigar box, acrylic paint markers, acrylic paint, Parisian inspiration.

“It’s an owl again!” Mr. Ryan said, holding up his box in front of his face last week during a preview at St. Luke’s Church in East Hampton. Last year’s creation also featured the bird that he calls his spirit animal. “I painted it in Paris. I thought I wouldn’t get it done in time, so I took it to Paris. I had it for those rainy days, painting in a little window seat. I painted an owl flying over Paris with a snake in his claw.”

Box: “Beach Box”

Materials: Cigar box, oil paints, varnish, a magnified scene from one of her paintings.

“I just put it in my studio and worked on it when I felt like it, over a period of time. It was a nice little relief,” she said. “I actually thought I was being too simple—I apologized to Arlene. I was looking at the other boxes, feathers coming out, just unbelievable. This is my very simple, straightforward box. But the image, I think, has a lot of depth. So I don’t really need to make it three-dimensional.”

Box: “Paradox”

Materials: Cigar box, black lacquer, mild steel, blackened patina, screws.

“It’s welded steel. This is what I do,” he said. “Whoever gets this, all of these for that matter, is getting art at an unbelievable price, and it’s for a very good cause. Everybody’s winning. The people buying it are winning, the charity’s winning, and the artist gets to show something a little different, because they’re restricted to the box. It makes them think a little harder.”

Box: “Matchbox”

Materials: One block of wood, acrylic paint, ink, a disregard for the rulebook.

“There’s nothing added. It’s all wood, even the money inside the box there,” he said, rubbing his finger over the carved, eerily realistic $100 bills. “Only wood is taken away. Nothing is added on. This is the smallest, simplest thing I’ve ever done. Years ago, I started with carving open books and painting the pages, and it morphed into doing any paper object: magazines, piles of newspapers and boxes of money. Big boxes.”

Box: “Estella Havisham’s Box”

Materials: An assortment of antiques—table runner, button, handkerchief—beads, satin, crocheted flower, lace embellishment, feet for the cigar box.

“The title was almost the toughest part,” she said. “Estella Havisham was in ‘Great Expectations,’ but I didn’t want it to be her mother’s, Miss Havisham’s, box, because she was the bride left behind, who grew old in her tattered wedding gown. I thought, ‘That’s too depressing.’ I thought Estella, who was her adopted daughter, was more likely to find someone—Pip, our hero, who was in love with her.”

Box: “The False Lure of Protection”

Materials: Cigar box, plastic fish lures, plastic gutter mesh, balsa wood, acrylic paint

“At first, I just had the box, and I was stymied because it just looked too tight,” she said. “So I tore off that side one day and it opened up. I was like, ‘Okay, I can do something now.’ I’ve heard from a fisherman that fish are attracted to the junk in the water, because it’s a kind of protection. But what I’m saying, because this is all chemical, it’s not a protection. It’s like a false lure to go to a place like this. And, of course, these things are called lures.”

Box: “Carp Pool”

Materials: Cigar box, papier-mâché, acrylic paint, wooden fish, Japanese rice paper, glass marbles, beads, glue, animal puns.

“It’s not ‘car pool.’ It’s ‘carp pool.’ Get it?” the artist said, peeking into the bed of glued glass marbles inside the box, swimming with wooden fish. “I had to put them in one by one. I thought, ‘I’m never gonna finish this.’ I did it layer by layer. But I had so much fun doing this, and I love having the fish play. And they’re going to school—and they are a school! I can’t help it.”

Box: “Time, Present & Time Past”

Materials: Cigar box, calendar turntable, mirror, clock hands, stamps, photograph of clouds, triangle month marker, acrylic paint, quote by T.S. Eliot.

“The photograph of clouds gets reflected in the mirror clock, or, if the box is open and you’re looking at the quotation, you see yourself in the clock,” she said. “The box is about the ways we measure time and an invitation to think about time in a different way. It is very subjective, depending on when our experiences are—if you’re a child waiting for your birthday or, maybe for some of us now, thinking about how the summer flies by.”

The 14th annual Box Art Auction will start with a silent auction on Saturday, September 6, at 4:30 p.m. at the Ross School Center for Well Being in East Hampton, followed by a live auction at 6 p.m. Tickets are $75, which include wine and hors d’oeuvres. Silent auction pieces start at $150; live auction bids start at $250. All proceeds benefit East End Hospice. For more information or to place an absentee bid, call (631) 288-7080, or visit eeh.org.