Box Art Auction: Creativity On Display

When Dennis Avedon sees good art, he knows it.

And last Wednesday night at the East End Hospice’s 12th annual “Box Art Auction” preview, it was a love affair for the East Hampton resident as he circled around half a dozen tables covered with wine and cigar boxes transformed by 90 local artists.

But while looking at the results, Mr. Avedon couldn’t hide the increasingly bewildered expression from his face.

“You give somebody a box and they see something totally different,” he mused during the fundraising event, which was held at Hoie Hall at St. Luke’s Church in East Hampton. “And everybody really sees a different world. I’m so impressed by people who have artistic talent. I can’t do this, but I can appreciate it.”

There are only a few rules the artists must follow: the piece can’t plug in electrically and it can’t be larger than 18 inches in any direction. The result is anywhere from literal interpretations of the boxes to smashing them up and creating a sculpture.

“You just can imagine anything,” benefit chair Arlene Bujese explained during a telephone interview last week. “It’s just about anything you can imagine. No kitchen sinks.”

When Mr. Avedon attends the auction on Saturday, September 8, at the Ross School for Well-Being in East Hampton, he’ll have his eye on several boxes, he said. But he won’t be alone.

The event draws hundreds of bidders every year, including Bobby Rosenbaum—an avid art collector and box art fan. Three years ago, he purchased seven boxes.

“I felt like a thief,” he laughed. “There’s some great art here and if people are asleep, you can pick up a nice piece of art at a good price. It’s always great when you get a piece of art that you like. And if you don’t pay too much for it, it’s even better. And it’s going to a good cause.”

Pieces in the silent auction start at $125, and live auction box art begin at $250. Mr. Rosenbaum predicts Sagaponack-based artist Hans van de Bovenkamp’s creation will fetch the highest bid.

“You can’t tell it’s a cigar box. It’s like a sculpture,” he said. “People will bid against me and I can’t really afford to get into a ... war, so I won’t go for that. Unfortunately, everyone knows him. It’ll go for $2,000, at least.”

The auction consistently raises more than $50,000 annually for East End Hospice, Ms. Bujese said. All proceeds go toward hospice’s general fund, which provides care for terminally ill patients and their families on the North and South forks.

Many of the artists are no strangers to the hospice’s work. It’s a cause many of them have felt firsthand, including long-time “Archie” comics illustrator Stan Goldberg.

“My last two brothers-in-law wound up in hospice and my dear wife’s sister wound up in hospice just about two years ago,” he said. “We used to go visit her. She was a great lady. She couldn’t make it. When she was awake and aware, we would look at pictures of her three great-grandchildren together.”

He looked away, blinking back tears.

“It was a pleasure just talking to her,” he said, fighting a lump in his throat. “She was a fine lady.”

Mr. Goldberg’s wine box is an homage to “The Three Stooges” in aniline dye. Currently, he is drawing Papercutz’s upcoming graphic novels featuring the slapstick trio.

His artistic passion blossomed when he was a young boy growing up during the 1930s in Manhattan, he said.

“I was treated royally by my uncles and aunts because it was, ‘Look at Stanley. He comes over, sits in a chair and draws a picture. He doesn’t run around or cause trouble,’” Mr. Goldberg, who now lives in Hampton Bays, recalled. “I’m happy when I’m not drawing, but I’m a little happier when I am.”

After just turning 17, he went to work for a company that would become Marvel Comics. He helped design the original color schemes of “Spider Man” and “Fantastic Four,” among other comic book characters, and developed a close relationship with Marvel Comics former president and chairman Stanley Lieber—better known by his pen name, Stan Lee.

“A lot of talent and a little luck I had at the beginning and fell in at the right time. I had Stan Lee as my friend, my editor, everything else for the first 20 years of my professional life. We spent a lot of time together with the superheroes,” Mr. Goldberg said. “It’s the greatest job in the world. They can’t get rid of me yet.”

While Mr. Goldberg’s “Three Stooges” box fits in to the more traditional category in the art auction, “brick rug” artist Margaret Kerr breaks outside of it with hers.

Inspired by her daily work—creating flat brick structures reminiscent in size, shape and pattern of antique Persian and tribal Oriental rugs—and a vacation she took in 1977, the idea for Ms. Kerr’s box art started with a name: “Brickhenge.”

“My mother and [my] three children and I visited Stonehenge and, oh, it’s a magical place. Absolutely,” Ms. Kerr breathed out, and pointed to the replica she constructed from old brick on top of her cigar box. “I did the hardest one first, with the four columns and curved lintel. I thought, ‘If I can do this, with the curved lintel, then I can probably persevere.’”

And she did, with the help of old chisels she found in the studio of her late husband and abstract expressionist painter, Robert Richenburg, who received hospice care before he died in 2006.

“This box took weeks and weeks, and I kept thinking two things. One, it’s for hospice, and oh my dear, hospice was so marvelous when Bob was dying. It made all the difference because you don’t have to worry about what’s happening, what’s going to happen,” she said. “That’s the time when families should be together in a loving celebration of who a person is, comforting, loving, where memories and humor and all that can enter in without this terrible squirrel cage of fear.”

Once the artist starts a project, she can’t think much about anything else, she said.

“It was so fun, but it wasn’t fun at first,” she said. “I didn’t know how I was going to make these small elements of my Stonehenge. So I took Bob’s chisel and a hammer and sandpaper and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can make the elements.’”

So she called up her mason, Joe Goncalves, and he introduced the artist to her new best friend: a Dremel.

“It’s the most wonderful hand tool,” she gushed. “I’m in love with this. You plug it in and the bits come up with diamonds on the edge. It would shape things. And if you bash it into your hand, it doesn’t hurt you. It sounds impossible, but it was made for me to play with old brick.”

The idea behind the Box Art Auction is freedom of expression, according to Ms. Bujese, and the unconventional use of different materials has inspired not only the artists, but also the bidders.

“I’m going to go down in my basement, dig up my old tools and have another look at them. They’ve been reincarnated into something wonderful here,” Mr. Avedon said, gesturing to Rocco Liccardi’s work, which features a collection of paintbrushes splattered with paint affixed to the cigar box. “Maybe I can glue them together and then paint them and make a masterpiece out of them.”

He laughed. “We’ll see.”

East End Hospice will host its 12th annual “Box Art Auction” on Saturday, September 8, at 4:30 p.m. at the Ross School Center for Well-Being in East Hampton. The live auction will begin at 6 p.m. Admission is $75. For more information or to place an absentee bid, call 288-7080 or email tmurphy@eeh.org.