Margy RochlinDear Creator Of Raisin Box Fence at Cheviot Hills Park:
Who are you? Are you an extremely tall elementary schooler for whom it has become a habit to consume the naturally sweet, wizened contents of the mini-raisin box from the sack lunch your mom packed for you then tidily fold back each flap so that it can be perched on top of a chain link fence at Cheviot Hills park near the intersection of Monte Mar and Motor Avenue? Are you a low-paid nanny pushing someone else's child in a stroller and marking time with those raisin boxes like a convict wearily scratching hash marks on the jail cell wall?
Are you a west side Simon Rodia writ very, very small or are you riffing on Mexican conceptual artist Gabriel Orozco's famously puzzled over piece, Yogurt Caps, which involved four clear-rimmed, blue Dannon yogurt lids and which a critic in Frieze magazine once deemed “a disarming articulation of emptiness” (only your medium of choice is a ½ ounce healthy snack container made out of colorful cardboard)? Are you a dieter and exercise enthusiast who stops to dispose of a 45 calorie dried fruit energy boost while jogging along a roughly 2.2 mile circular journey that takes you past golfers, tennis players and squashed squirrels?
raisin boxes on a fence; Credit: M. Rochlin
Whoever you are, please come forward. We'd like to personally congratulate you on the curious beauty that is the long, undulating stretch of (intentional or not) public art showcasing fading boxes from a most democratic selection of local supermarkets — Von's, Ralph's, Safeway — and let you know that we hope your project ends up stretching into infinity. Because the sight of it never fails to brighten our day.
Sincerely,
Squid Ink
raisin boxes on a fence; Credit: M. Rochlin
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