Mid-stride in a Modesto antique mart, a dented blue lunch
box caught my eye. I have never make an animal from a lunch box… what might
this be? Transforming cast off items is much harder than it might seem and it involves
quite a bit of risk.
Immediately, I though of an elephant. After all, my own metal
Disney lunch box was heavy and clunky, just like the Dumbo on its cover. I
remember swinging it through the halls of my elementary school in Kalamazoo,
Michigan.
So, from this wonderful old blue lunch box, a blue elephant
has emerged, and it is much to my liking. It has taken form with the transformation
of the following parts:
1. Coffee table legs
from Port Townsend, WA
2. Cutting torch tips
for tusks
3. Steamer basket
ears
4. A brass hose
nozzle, made in Italy, for the trunk, and
5. A small used
paintbrush for the tail
My Dumbo lunch box didn’t fare that well... It graduated from
a lunch box to a coffin. What did it contain? One fall day my dad was tasked
with buying me a new pair of winter shoes. We went to Okun Brothers Shoes in
Kalamazoo. To my dismay, he chose ones with hard leather soles and brown suede
uppers. Kid laughed! So I took those shoes and closed them up in the Dumbo
lunch box and I hid it under my parent’s dresser. I wore my Converse high tops
all that cold Michigan winter… and the next… and the one after that, too – they
are still my go-to favorites. When my parents asked what happened to my leather
shoes, I said I had no idea. I got a new Man From Uncle lunch box and a tornado
blew the roof off Okun Brothers, scattering shoes all over town.
Spurred on by this successful elephant I have an old Coleman
thermos animal that is waiting to be born!
