Stories in a Box: Clint Chadsey's Box Art

Clint Chadsey, the Melrose Public Library's former mail carrier, is no longer on his route bringing them mail. Instead, the retired post office employee-turned-artist is providing them with a free display of his "stories in a box."

This last week of June marks the end of the collage and box assemblage artist's month-long show at the library. Librarian Liz Goodwin has been watching visitors stopped to admire the boxes all June. 

"It's unique," Goodwin said. "People go right up to it. Right up. They say they haven't seen anything like it."

Unless they've attended the annual Melrose Arts Festival held every April at Memorial Hall. Thirty-five years ago, Chadsey, while in college in the D.C. area studying languages, got interested in collage. He'd start ripping out pieces from old magazines, storing them in a box. 

The result? A photo with a weird saying on it. Something that would make you think, laugh or smile. 

Then, he started adding boxes to his collages — faded, antiqued-looking boxes — and two years ago, decided to focus on boxes. 

"I see something someone else did when I look at art magazines, and I see something different in it," Chadsey said.

The stories in the box are simple, yet complex.  Funny, yet philosophical.  The topics can range from sports, to love, to war, to holidays and special occasions. For example, one box shows three compartments: a young soldier on the left, a picture of his mother on the right, and in the middle, the words "weregrettoinformyou" spelled out, as one long word, in scrabble letters.

Another on display on the library walls, straight ahead as you walk into the adult library, is "Not When." More scrabble letters spell out three words, spaced out, one on top of each other: "If…Not…Now", then in the middle of the box, three more words spelled down vertically "Life…Time…Love," with two cut-out old-fashioned pictures of a man and a woman, and a clock between them, ending the story in the right-handed side of the box with one word – "When."

The boxes are poignant, stunning in their messages and delivery. Chadsey finds inspiration in Joseph Cornell, "the greatest box artist of all times," says Chadsey. 

"He's the god of box art." The admiration is genuine.

About three years ago, a show associated with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem featured artists who get their inspiration from Cornell.  Over 200 pieces were submitted.  Seventy were selected for display and only four pieces sold.  Two of the four were Chadsey's.

He shakes his head, even today, in disbelief that his work, in any way, is associated with Cornell's.

Chadsey makes box art looks easy, yet he admits that when he gets ready to make a box, the ideas have usually been bubbling around in his head for years. 

"I think I do things where they jump out at you," he said. "I'm lucky my art appeals to everybody, (from) children to older people. It also gets me into art shows because I'm the only box artist around." 

His work has been on display at the Melrose library three to four times prior to this show. To date, he estimates that he's made over 150 boxes, another 150-plus collages, and of those 100 collages, made postcards of them, too. There's boxes with themes, like Christmas boxes, and even for wedding and baby showers. 

"I always thought, just anybody can do it," he said. "Now I realize, no, not everybody can do it."

He finds it gets better as he pays attention to it.

"At this point in my life, I feel I did something I can feel proud of," he said, humbly admiring his own art. 

Yet he's not finished. Currently, Chadsey is reevaluating what he's going to do next. He's thinking a doing black and white collages, with a surrealistic look.

The Melrose Public Library will display Clint Chadsey's box art through June 30.