Risk-The Difference Between Good and Great

About a year ago in a critique of my work, my sculpture professor at the time left me with a very troubling  message: "Too much control".   Where he commended the success of many of my works as being complete in form and content, his concern was that the majority of my art-making didn't take any risks.


Risks may lead to failure.  Does good art have to take risks to be good art?  All my life I have been creating pieces that I could control and work closely with until the piece's end--most importantly was controlling its end.  I put a lot of emphasis on making sure my work is successful in the purpose.  "Where's My Cube", is a much different practice for me in attempting to create successful art. 


Success and failure oppose each other, but can successful art be, in lue of failure?  Each cube I make and put out in the world is a risk, in that there may very well be no return from the art.  In fact, only a mere fourty-two out of over three-hundred cubes yielded a response.  That is a lot of failure in what I consider to be a successful work of art. 


Where the responses on this blog work to bring "Where's My Cube?" full circle, I wonder if the premise of the project really needed any response at all for it to be successful.  I think about the cubes that are lost; are they failures?  They may have generated more conversation and interaction between people then the ones that posted responses, and I just don't know about it.  In this sense the responses that do exist on this blog are more like evidence that the project is working.  I feel that the failure that does exists, does not detract from the project as an entity in the world.  

Locative Public Sculpture

I feel that at this point it would be an appropriate time to talk more about what I was after with this project.  It’s about the passing of hands and experiencing the globe through interactive public sculpture.  Rather than being a single piece, per-say, there are at this point in time over 300 cubes in circulation, some that have even ventured outside of the US—places as far away as Australia and Germany!

This project has no specific form, ending point, or authorship.  Being the creator I have no discoverable identity in it.  The project runs it self in other words—where my only involvement is making and scattering these objects.  The project develops with the movement of people, where each small public sculpture provokes an interaction with multiple users, until eventually finding its final resting point.

A Cube's Perspective

The rumbling and clanking against my fellow cubes was an uncomfortable awakening to say the least.  I found my self in a dimly lit cramped space with my brothers and sisters all around me.  A backpack?  Where are we going?  After what was an unbearable amount of time, movement and continuous stabbing; there was then a moment of stillness, and the sound of a zipper opening, followed by a blinding stream of white light.  A giant hand came down from the sky and palmed me.  I felt myself go weightless, as I was released into the air.  The next moment came as a sudden shock, and bounce, and thud; pain erupted through my body as I tumbled down the sidewalk finally coming to a halt.  There I rested on the side of the street carelessly tossed and forgotten—wondering what was to be my destiny?

A Cube's Creation

Before you lies a small varnished wooden box, if it could tell you a story, what would it say? Would it talk about its creation? Its initial launch into the world? Its travels across land and water? Its passing of hands and conversation?



Cube #56 was created in the sculpture foundry at Cornell University in Ithaca NY, USA. Made more or less identical to its brothers (#55 and #57), its original form was a half-inch sheet of plywood bought at the local LOWES Home Improvements store in downtown Ithaca. Guide marks were drawn every two and a-half inches and the plywood was carried to the table saw. The transformation began: From a single sheet, to multiple strips, cross cut into two and a half by two inch rectangles, then nailed together and sanded. 


What was once material at a department store, now had shape: The cube. In the sculpture world, this shape is significant as it is realized to be the basis or beginning point to all three-dimensional creation. For example rendering software’s automatically provide a cube as a starting point with center at 0,0,0 on the x,y,z axis. The logic here is that any three-dimensional form can be generated from the cube.


Now, sanded smooth, edges piercing, cube #56 receives its identity. On one side “#56” written is across the top; directly below it in red letters is “Take Me With You!”. On the opposite side is a QR Code, readable by Smartphones, and its pointing URL written below it. Two cotes of indestructible weatherproof marine resin later and Cube #56 sits, on a sheet of clear cellophane, drying, resting, waiting to be set free into the world. 


The next day into a backpack it goes, along with its sisters Cube #54 and #58, to be taken to a location of travel and high pedestrian traffic; to begin an unknown journey a to a final resting place; to be free like the seedlings of a dandelion in the breeze.

You Found Me!

Welcome to the "Where's My Cube" Project!

The Cube has been said to be the basis and starting block of sculpture.

This cube represents one of hundreds.  As an interactive tactile and virtual based project, its goal is to promote human connectivity through public sculpture.

1. Notice your cube has a number?
2. Please feel liberated to take this cube with you, consider its purpose and what it means to you, then relocate it in any new location you feel appropriate.
3. To participate in this interactive project, please include in your post below: the corresponding cube’s number, its new location, and any other feeling or comments.  
4. Keep a lookout for other cubes and check the blog for new cube locations!