Box of Wisdom

This week’s Life Book lesson was taken by Melody Ross of Brave Girls Club and was a meditation on the wisdom that is generated by life experiences, both positive and negative.  The idea was to create a figure holding a box.  The box would be the receptacle for all the wisdom we possess.  From the box would emerge statements about our life experiences, how those translate into lessons, and the wisdom gained.  While Ross made suggestions as to composition and media, it was pretty much free choice and open to interpretation.  I, therefore, chose to work in ink, my favourite medium.  The idea of possessing a box containing concepts automatically made me think of Pandora’s Box, from Greek Mythology, and from there my imagination leaped to Louise Brooks who portrayed Lulu in the 1929 movie ‘Pandora’s Box’.  That, therefore, was the imagery I used as the inspiration for my response to the lesson.

You may note that I do not have any typography or text integrated into the illustration.  This may read as odd coming from someone who writes a personal blog but I do like to maintain my privacy.  As such, I did not much fancy sharing my educational life experiences on the internet.  I, therefore, decided to share my illustration online prior to working on that section of the lesson.  Furthermore, I have not yet decided how to incorporate that element into my art work.  I may opt for the suggestion made by Ross and either write or print onto paper and adhere those statements to the box; alternatively I might turn the box into an envelope, with a pouch on the reverse, and place the statements inside; or I might write the statements on the reverse of the drawing.