Julie Bernson

de / re-construct

I am terrified of a blank surface. I have always been an inveterate collector of things both bought and found. When I began making things in my 20s, collage and assemblage were the most natural way to evade my fear of the blank page and activate my growing collections. Over the years, my work has variously used antique watches and photographs, vintage paper ephemera, old wooden boxes and frames, and fruit stickers and paint chips.

In the past few years, my materials and ideas have become focused around my daily interactions with packaging that comes into the home. Tiny boxes, toothpaste boxes, shipping boxes brilliantly engineered to attract, stack, display, ship, and be thrown away to make room for more. Paper, plastic, net, and cardboard containers that hold our daily food, essential and not-so- essential health products, and our electronics until we use and dispose of them.

As I gather materials, imagine their potential, and deconstruct and reconstruct them, I think about the industrial designers who invented them, the factory workers who manifested them, the carriers who delivered them, and why I need the products in the first place. I continually resist the temptation to make merely aesthetic arrangements, instead allowing the pieces to create a logical rearrangement that references, yet defies, their original purpose.

As equal parts collector, maker, and educator, I am pleased to have the opportunity to share some of my working materials and oFer select cardboard bits for visitors to compose into their own ephemeral collages. I hope you enjoy exploring the materiality, beauty, and intricacies of cardboard design as much as I do!