Dispatch from the Box: What’s Next, Space?

Rachel: “Have you thought about how strange this is . . . how much more removed from reality this is than our weird pretend art lives at Hub-Bub.”
Arielle: “Yeah. What’s next, space?”

Really though, when I started this blog post last night, it went like this:

So, it’s about 1 A.M and somehow, by magic, am I getting internet. I am in South Carolina. Sitting on an air mattress. In my “bedroom, ” (which is actually a vacant display window), watching the barflies wander home through the streets of downtown Spartanburg. This. Is. Weird.

Yesterday was a long and draining day - so many people stopped by the box, Arielle and I hardly had a spare minute. Channel 4 came twice. We met children, adults, and old folks - even some people who told us that they had lived in the area and never been to downtown Spartanburg before! Probably a lot of the hustle and bustle was due to the weather - it was a sunny day that shed some new and better light on our diagram from the night before, and lots of people wanted some explanation of connections that Arielle and I had made:

Kris Neely, Spartanburg’s Artist-in-Transit, came and hid one of his pieces of art somewhere right outside of the windows while we were sleeping, so avid followers of his project already outside the box before we woke, trying to figure out where it had been stashed.

We also got some great additions to our collection of dropbox donations:

An anonymous donor brought by a retro-awesome binder:

Somebody, left this rejection letter from the 700 Club
on the sidewalk. The final paragraph begins:
“We trust your life will bring great glory to Jesus Christ . . .”:

People left notes, money, marbles, mints (do we have bad breath?):

Mr. Bucko Brandt brought us a box of Krispy Kremes,
most of which was passed on to other visitors in order to
keep me from eating the whole thing:

Phillip Belcher was incredibly kind to bring us sushi for lunch:

People brought by spring rolls, cookies, pumpkins, chocolate, water, and more. Hopefully I don’t become too fat with all of these food donations and almost no physical activity aside from pacing back and forth inside of the box.

I also received my first musical dropbox donation (thematically appropriate!) by email from Taylor, penpal extraordinaire. Check it out:

Around 12:30, Arielle and I started our first activity of the day. We hung three frames of various sizes on the inside of our window and encouraged visitors to place objects or pictures into the frames for us to write/draw/think about.

We had people pressing their faces up to the glass, Nicholas even got his nipple in the little frame, there were feathers, vegetables, donuts, and more. My favorites were:

As the sun continued to beat down on our untempered glass walls, the temperature in the box got positively toasty! But the afternoon was full of more conversation with friends and strangers, which was a good excuse to open the door and get some fresh air. (Day 2 and already I could use a shower, look at that nappy hair):

I was particularly moved by a conversation with an elderly man by the name of Willard Bright, who was out on the streets of downtown for an afternoon constitution. He told me that all the people gathered on Main Street reminded him of what Spartanburg was like when he was a boy.

Most of the afternoon was spent preparing for our planned activity that evening and also spent going through video footage from Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. I only took a quick break to run over to Cafe Ishi and blog:

Arielle and I then had to hustle to get ready for our second performance of the day, “Sound Booth.” With a microphone and monitor outside for passers-by to talk into, we hid ourselves behind the curtains in my bedroom and took to reading, storytelling and interacting with whoever happened to be on the street.

We’re here but we’re hiding.

Arielle with headphones on.

Lots of people crowded around the microphone.

I didn’t know exactly who was out there until I got the pictures later,
but I could hear that a lot of people had brought their dogs.

My last break of the day was a trip over to Delaney’s for a pint and a bit of the world series. Arielle and I finished the evening, again, sitting outside on our “stoop,” watching the people go by. I slept pretty well, though I need to put a little bit more air in the that air mattress of mine. Hopefully the chilly weather today doesn’t keep local artists from coming out on their lunch breaks today to join us in public artmaking. I hope to see you all there!

The prettiest girl in all of Spartanburg, Derya Hanife Altan, was kind enough to get me a new cell phone charger (Thank you, darlin!) so I am no longer incommunicado in the box. I’ll be calling back those of you who I’ve been neglecting later today . . .

Also, HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY TO MATT BOLLINGER,
the hottest (straight) man in Provincetown!!!

Oh, and Arielle wanted me to tell you that she isn’t actually that gassy. Or something like that.