Class Report
Create Your Own Art Light Box
Teacher: Heloisa Escudero, freelance artist
Documentarian: Holly J. Morris
Date: Jan. 18, 2014
Artist Heloisa Escudero loves illumination. Every nook and cranny of her Arlington apartment glows with string lights, homemade lamps, softly lit collections of objects (such as her Shrine to All Religions), and art light boxes. Those are what KCDC students made — started, rather, as completing a light box is more of a two-day project — on a cold and windy Saturday at Heloisa’s studio.
Disclaimer: These photos and captions show the basic steps of making a light box. They are NOT instructions. Don’t go trying to make a box unless you’re damn sure you know how to not be electrocuted. Onward!
Some ingredients of a light box. The complete list:
- wooden box (a cigar box or something similar);
- C7 socket;
- C7 light bulb;
- a plug;
- electrical lamp wire.
You’ll need to go to both Home Depot and Michaels to find all the components. If you want to cheat, Home Depot and Amazon sell all-in-one cords with sockets, plugs, and switches.
Stripping the ends of the lamp wire. The socket will go on one end, the plug on the other.
Success! Light has been made.
Drill holes in the box. Note the tape; that helps prevent the frail boxes from splitting or breaking altogether.
This box is nearly ready for adornment and paint.
Cover the holes in the box with translucent materials; here, Heloisa suggests silk flowers.
Behold: Finished light boxes! These are Heloisa’s.
Two amazing facts about Heloisa:
She runs the Backpack Gallery, a mobile exhibition in which artists wear miniature galleries on their backs, while other participants act in roles such as curator and intern. Above are some of the galleries.
In New York City, she did laundry for celebrities. She kept the lint for a future art project. This is (some of) that lint:
Holly J. Morris is an editor/writer from Duluth, Ga. She says “y’all” because it is the English language’s best attempt at a plural second-person pronoun, not because she is Southern. KCDC recruited her for this reason and kept her because she’s so amazing at spreadsheets. She runs on Cheerwine.