As an artist, whether it’s in the fine arts, performing arts, or literary arts, we all go through that exhilarating, but exasperating process of creativity. Putting our hearts and souls, and sweat and blood into a piece of art that will hopefully touch other people when they view it or listen to it.
But what if you put all of that time and energy into something just to have it destroyed? What if you were to destroy your own art?
The Cardboard Benini
That is the theme of a great documentary called “The Cardboard Benini”, the story of artist Jimmy Crashow. Crashow showed his artistic talent early in life, when he started making artwork out of discarded cardboard boxes. What everyone else thought was trash, Jimmy saw as a wonderful opportunity to apply his skills to a material that was going to be thrown away.
Throughout his life he supported himself with his illustrations and wood carvings, but it was the cardboard sculptures that were really his passion. He would spend hours in his studio creating unique sculptures that were up to 15 feet tall. One of these sculptures caught the attention of an art dealer Allan Stone, who would later become Jimmy’s dealer.
Stone, an avid art collector ended up with several of the massive sculptures in his house. But after he ran out of room he put them in the backyard, totally exposed to the elements.
Destroy Your Own Art
After Stone died, Crashow went by the house to pay his respects and found the artwork he labored over and cherished was tarnished and melted into a heap of mush. It was then that he got the idea to speed up the process. If cardboard comes from the trash, what if it returned to the trash? And what if the artist who created it also helped destroy it?
In the documentary “The Cardboard Benini”, you see the whole process from conception to death, a purposeful metaphor for life. It will force you to ask the question “As an artist, could you destroy your own creativity”?