Whoever said great things come in small packages must have been talking about the Orton International Cone Box Show.
The show is a biannual exhibition of ceramic art that must be able to fit into an Orton Standard Cone Box, which measures approximately 3” x 3” x 6”.
While the show was originated in 1975 by Bill Bracker, a future art professor at the University of Kansas, BU Professor of Art Inge Balch is now curator of the show.
“I took over the show in 1994 and made it international,” Balch said. “Since then, it has been to China, it has been to Denmark, it really has traveled all over.”
Every other year, Balch accepts submissions from ceramists all over the world. Balch, along with two other invited jurors, jury the show and select pieces based on creativity, imagination, craftsmanship and aesthetic excellence.
This year, Balch received over 300 entries, but only 122 were chosen to debut in the exhibition hosted at the Lawrence Art Center.
“It’s a lot of work,” Balch said. “You cannot jury a show of small stuff from a slide because you can’t see if the lid fits, you can’t see how it’s made underneath, you can’t turn it around.”
So while Balch’s work normally consists of ceramics, every other year she must also spend time making cardboard shipping boxes because all the pieces that don’t make the show must be shipped back to their creators.
“I’ve been shipping like a fool,” Balch said. “Luckily, I’ve got some of my students helping me put boxes together.”
Balch’s students are also encouraged to not only see the show, but submit items themselves.
“It’s a show that you don’t have to be famous for, you just have to do good work,” Balch said. “We didn’t have any students submit items this year, but always after they have seen the show they say, ‘oh, I want to do that next time.’”
Junior Kaylin McCrary was one of Balch’s students to tour the exhibition.
“I was amazed by how detailed every piece was,” McCrary said. “What ended up being my favorite part was trying to guess the cost of each item. The smallest pieces seemed to cost the most, but the detail made them worth the price.”
Fifteen purchase awards of $250 were given out as well as three juror awards of $300.
The show will be on exhibit until Oct. 27 and then travel to Highland Community College and Houston, Texas, before the pieces are returned to the owners or given to the purchasers.
In addition to being curator of the Cone Box Show, Balch has also been asked by Professor of Biology Darcy Russell to create five ceramic disks for the newly completed Boyd Center on Baker’s campus.
The pieces will be hung on the south wall of the student lounge area on the second floor.
“We made that nice space for students and I was looking at that wall and didn’t want it to just be another bulletin board with papers all over it, it should have art, something interesting to look at,” Russell said. “So I thought, I’ll have Inge make me pieces.”
Balch crafted a similar project for Denious Hall last year, but the focus of these disks will be the five disciplines housed in the Boyd Center: biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics and computer science.
“I love the pieces she did for Denious,” Russell said. “I just wanted something in this building that would really pull everything together.”
Balch has nearly completed the first of the five disks, which is focused on biology.
“The biology piece is just so cool,” Russell said. “I can’t wait to see the other disks grow from [Balch’s] imagination.”
Balch said each disk is very time-consuming and can take several weeks to finish but is happy her work can be part of the Boyd Center and will continue to work on the disks throughout the semester.
