Beliefnet
2016-11-18

Can a simple piece of art inspire the world? Can an empty box hold the key to peace? In Franck de Las Mercedes’s world, it’s a possibility. He’s the artist behind the Priority Boxes, an art project that uses painted cardboard boxes to share a special message to every recipient.

Jennifer E. Jones is Beliefnet's Inspiration Editor.

All pictures are used by permission of the artist.

Franck began painting in his mid-twenties and soon found that he wanted to turn his newfound passion into a professional career. Working out of his studio in New Jersey, he started selling his portraits of old Hollywood stars on eBay, and then while cleaning his brushes and painting casually on cardboard boxes, Franck unwittingly made works of art. A clerk at the post office where he routinely shipped his paintings called attention to his colorful boxes. “That was a really interesting observation about how art has the power to interrupt the daily routine," he tells Beliefnet. "From there, the project really evolved.”

By the end of that night, Franck had his idea: to label the boxes with words like peace and hope and make them not only pieces of art but inspirational as well. He explains, “We’re always looking to have things and those thing are going to come in boxes. [Here] the actual gift is on the outside, which is the art. So, what if it had a message?”

Franck looked at the world around him and saw the conflict in Iraq in the news. “How about I make this an initiative for peace and make a statement. Peace can be at times very abstract to human beings. We all talk about peace and have peace signs, but we don’t really sit down and discuss it on an individual level. I wanted to challenge people by placing peace in the room as you would a television and question, 'What would you do if you had that there?' I want people to dialogue. It creates a whole discussion on art and peace. That’s when it came about to have the labels. I wanted to point out the fragility of these things and actually challenge people with their ability to influence change."

He first sent boxes to his friends who were artists, and their feedback encouraged him to send more out. He first posted his art on Craigslist in New York, and over night, he had over a hundred requests for his free works of art. “It wasn’t like a planned thing with a launch date. Before I knew it, I was already doing it. It was such an experiment to me. Here I am, five years later, and it doesn’t show signs of slowing down.”

Franck has sent his Priority Boxes all over the world. When asked what country he could never imagine he’d be shipping art to, he said, “Saudi comes to mind. It was very surprising to get requests from there. I sent three to Egypt before the whole conflict. And then there are countries that I even question, ‘Will I be able to visit,’ such as Malaysia and South Africa.” Franck has sent his art work to more than 70 countries on nearly every continent.

“I get all kinds of wonderful stories,” Franck says. “I’ve gotten letters from people who were looking for something to do, then there’s a person who took a photo of their box. They let me know, ‘I haven’t put down the camera. I'm thinking of taking photography lessons now.’ Someone else who didn’t want to go to school now wants to explore art.

“Some people take the approach: ‘I was going through a specific thing in my life and the box sort of gave me the answer.’ The feedback is very broad. It can go for anything from art aesthetically to spiritual to metaphysical and even philosophical.”

Franck and his work are gaining attention everywhere from schools wanting to create Priority Box art to media outlets digging for a story. In spite of the attention, the artist has remained humble. “It’s not so much me; I don’t have the answers. It’s more about the box and creating a network...

“In this day and age when there are networks online, I noticed among your thousands of friends that you have on any social network, you can actually be really, really lonely. And what I found is that what we all have in common, people from all walks of life no matter what, is that we have a need for peace, hope and love -- which by the way are the top three things that people request from me. There is that collective need, and that through art, we are able to find some common ground, in spite of our political views, color, or sexual orientation.”

Franck says he is close to sending out almost 10,000 boxes and more are to come. He took his project to Kickstarter, the Web site that helps ordinary people get funding for their entrepreneurial dreams. He raised $5,000 that will allow him to continue spreading his message of hope and love, but most of all, peace.

To learn more about Franck de Las Mercedes and his art  or to request a Priority Box, visit his website at www.fdlmstudio.com. You can also follow Franck on Twitter: twitter.com/fdlm.

All pictures are used by permission of the artist.


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