We have a really special product called “The Mystery Box”
In the listing itself, I’ve written sales pitch style copy to let you know what’s in a mystery box for you. I wanted to take some time, though, to write about what prompted us to invent the mystery box. There’s a lot wrapped up in it for us too :)
Mystery Box Back Story
Not too long ago, I watched a mega corporation with monopoly over the craft industry (seemingly) decide that it needed to exert more presence in fiberart circles. Let’s just call this company Michelle’s ;)
Maybe Michelle’s had some zoomtastic boardroom meetings; maybe Michelle’s hired a new young-gun social media marketing guru–all speculative fiction at this point.
Here are the facts, however:
Michelle’s introduced a new social media marketing campaign wherein they would ask a number of fiber artists with large IG followings to recreate their logo in their medium of expertise. By “their” logo, I mean Michelle’s logo. And so I watched while talented colleagues went about devoting their studio space, mental energy, experiential knowledge, muscle memory, and skill to the creation of a well known corporate logo. They conscripted themselves (and their time) to making a creative rendition of Michelle’s branding in exchange for scant cash, few materials, and the mere promise of exposure.
For obvious reasons, the campaign drew some bad IG press pretty quickly and was swiftly abandoned. But it stuck with me as a perfect example of what not to do when attempting to market a business
I internalized the following lessons:
*Make sure that you’re actively involved in promoting, mentoring, serving, and upholding the creative communities you market within. In an attentional economy, you’ve got to give back just as much as you take.
*Don’t entice artists to use their time to render your business’s branding/logo unless it’s a fully remunerated commission. It’s one thing to invite tags on social media; it’s another to encourage artists to lend their skill to the creation of your branding materials when they’re not adequately compensated for their time.
*Invite artists to make their own logo (or better yet, something akin to it; something of benefit to their own collection/collectors), then use your channels and whatever platform you have to promote that. Not the other way around.
I’ve remembered these lessons learned through observation and I’ve tried to take every irksome aspect of Michelle’s ill-fated social media campaign and put something more responsible and reciprocal in its place.
The Mystery Box has emerged as one of these initiatives
Three times a year, we develop a custom metal frame that encapsulates a particular concept. The frame is an act of collaboration between my partner, Loren (a metalsmith, welder, fabricator, machinist, superhero), and myself. We work collaboratively to make the scaffolding for my macrame sculptures, so we’ve learned a thing or two about the relationship between metal and string. I suppose I want to signpost the fact that this is one key way that the mystery box is undoubtedly linked to my personal art practice: I’d argue, in fact, that it stems directly from it–from my knowledge that I’m extremely fortunate to have a partner who will weld me whatever metal structures I dream up; from my understanding that metal scaffolding opens macrame, weaving, knitting, crochet, stitching, and embroidery to a different dimensionality; and specifically, to the dimensionality of sculpture. I feel really good about my business when I’m promoting the same products that have made a world of difference to me. That feels reciprocal and genuine. It would be a stretch to call it an “offering,” because the mystery box is, after all, a product that sustains my small business. But, I do think it’s a product that’s born from a desire to share something of value: I’m saying “here’s an approach to fiber that’s helped my learning along; maybe it will do the same for you too.”
In addition to a top secret (generally partially 3D) metal frame, our question-mark-clad mystery boxes also contain a collection of fibre, a letter, and some other fun concept-conscious fare. We shape each mystery box around a single word that hints at its surprise theme. Once released into the wild, customers can purchase a mystery box for a limited time, never knowing exactly what they’ll receive–yet always willing to try something completely unexpected.
I find myself in awe of our customers who go out on this particular limb. Even though I believe heartily in the mystery box as a product, even though I know exactly how much effort is exerted in every stage of its development, I still have to say that I’m perpetually surprised that fellow fiber creatives are willing to throw caution to the wind and purchase the unknown.
It’s a special time for us at Unfettered Co once mystery boxes start arriving on our customers’ doorsteps. It’s a time when we get immediate feedback that lets us in on just a little piece of what it might feel like to open a mystery. It’s always struck me as incredibly generous the way that our mystery box customers help us to build hype. They’ll often share their unboxing experience; they’ll usually pop right into Etsy to leave a glowing review; they’ll generally begin to offer hints of how they plan to proceed with the mystery frame. There’s something altogether un-guarded about this practice, and it fosters a sense of belonging.
We have a little competition associated with each new mystery. It’s a crowd-sourced challenge equipped with all the usual trappings: a deadline for final entries and a private vote to crown a winner. The winner gets
a) punk points;
b) the next mystery box for free;
c) sometimes a little bonus like a chance to collaborate with us on our next secret frame or an opportunity to work with Loren on the development of a custom frame for their own fiberart.
With these mystery boxes, it’s been especially important to me to strike a balance between marketing my own business and celebrating the accomplishments of our customers (“challengers” or “mystery boxers,” as I often call them). On the one hand, I do want to show off just what Unfettered Co can do: I want to actively show (rather than simply tell) that our handmade metal is innovative, totally unique, and assistive in the realm of diminishing obstacles to 3D fiber creations. On the other hand, I want for our mystery boxes to put on full display the ingenuity, artistry, integrity, skill, and imagination of their participants. A metal frame is only so good as the people who bring it to life, and most often that frame remains utterly hidden in finished creations. It provides a system of literal support for fibre, but does so without needing to exhibit “main character energy”
I like that. There’s too much main character energy kicking around already. It is, after all, the “influencer” model of conduct that social media platforms perpetuate. But systems of support? Those are harder to find sometimes in an attentional economy. And yet, it feels like the more we can support, uphold, and uplift the uniqueness of one another’s creative visions, the more fiberartists (any artists, really) will flourish.
I love the spirit openness with which our mystery boxes are both conceived and received. We might curate a box around a predetermined concept, but the concept is never fixed. Challengers take the same materials, the same frame, and alchemize them to a point where you might not, as a viewer, have even an inkling that two or twenty finished creations stemmed from the same box. It’s not just the frame that’s rendered unrecognizable in the mystery box competition: it’s the simple fact that multiple pieces share any point of origin at all.
I’m obsessed with this unpredictability.
In my former academic life, I studied literature because there’s no telling what words will do in the hands of different readers. The same text is changed–again and again–by the people who read it. In my current life as a fiber artist, I take glee in re-creating pieces that follow the same concept, but with difference; I hedge my bets on the fact that I could fill decades worth of future work where I examine the same few “things” because what’s important is less that I’m making a macrame fish (just to pull one potent example from the mix), and more that each macrame fish presents a different opportunity to explore relationality, dimensionality, movement, narrative, line, argument, tone, ecology, temporality, and so on.
It’s in my work as entrepreneur that this relishing of difference can fall short sometimes. Businesses need to find ways to appeal to a market that already exists. Businesses need to cater to a customer base that arrives having seen something that they want to buy (or perhaps to recreate). Businesses need to speak to the universal appeal of their products. We need to show consistency: that what you see is what you’ll get. In these ways, the momentums that sustain self-expression, art, and individuality are sometimes foreclosed by the trappings of commerce. Sometimes….but not always.
In The Mystery Box, I’ve found a way to honour the principles that uphold art. Or so I hope. This is the one product we sell where we cannot say exactly what you’ll get. We cannot predict precisely what you’ll uncover. And we certainly have no clue what your mystery box will look like once finished.
Let me give you a little visual taste of this range:
This was the handcrafted frame from our “fungi” mystery box challenge. People loved it so much that we’ve since available as a made-to-order item in our shop.
This piece is made by Miki McArthur, a Californian fibreartist with a knack for whimsical compositions that highlight found materials in exciting ways. I love the way that Miki’s piece is designed to stand up, and to add equal parts of realism and fantasy to the toadstools. You can find Miki’s work here
This was the creation of Ramona Agoston, a fibreartist from Maryland whose playful work is always fuelled by ongoing experiments with technique and style. If I hadn’t already shown you the frame that Ramona worked with, would you have de facto identified the correlation between Miki and Ramona’s work? I adore how Ramona’s trippy piece re-casts the fungi altogether as abstract eyes and tongue. By using a circular weave behind the frame, she’s also able to reconfigure its lines and challenge the mystery box’s “fungi” theme. You can find Ramona’s work here
The “Configuration” Mystery Box Challenge might have been my favourite to-date because we didn’t make a preset singular frame so much as invite participants to examine potential spatial relationships between geometric shapes.
Mikaela Szumigraj, a Nova Scotian Fibreartist (a “fiber engineer”), entered this piece in our Configuration challenge. In keeping with the exploration of spatial relations, Mikaela engineered her creation so that each element could open and close. In essence, the viewer gets to actively construct the piece’s layout on the wall. You can find Mikaela’s work here, and here, and her Domestika course here
Laura Caitlin, a fiberartist from Philadelphia, used the opportunity to weave, macrame, and stitch a self-portrait with her cat. She even created a mini version of her previous mystery box entry (the whale clock you see in the upper right hand corner). This is a gorgeous self-reflection on the acts of slow creation and inter-species communication. You can find Laura’s work here
Lindsay Hawes, an award-winning fibreartist from Texas, took the “configuration” challenge in an altogether different direction by employing two of the four frames on their sides. In so doing, she was able to weave a magical, overgrown portal to worlds unknown and unknowable. You can find Lindsay’s work here and here. Lindsay was recently interviewed by Create Whimsy, and you can find that interview here
We created the “Aquatic” mystery box’s frame in two parts: mostly, for pragmatic reasons of trying to cut down on dimensional shipping weight. But the creative impact of this decision left us stunned, and you’re about to see just why.
Nicole Poirier, a fiberartist from Massachusetts, manifested a dramatic narrative with the help of two frames: one to create the fish’s body with a tail intact; and the other to lay on its side, forming the scaffolding for a soon-to-be-capsized boat. You can find Nicole’s work here and here
Crystal Gourdine, a fiberartist from New Brunswick, Canada, adopted a squidly strategy to create a cephalopod rather than a fish. With the help of her own handspun, handyed yarns, beading, embroidery, ceramic sculpture, and weaving, Crystal made the initial fish frame wholly unrecognizable while offering a different take on the aquatic theme. You can find Crystal’s work here and here
Now, before you go thinking that there might only be one way to turn a fish body and fishtail into a squid, take a look at fiberartist, Kristen Phillips’ glow-in-the-dark cephalopod. Inspired by the bioluminescent firefly squid, Kristen totally reconfigured the frame to represent a scientifically mysterious aquatic creature that would make itself most known at night. You can find Kristen’s work here
Anything can happen in a mystery box challenge, you see!
I think it’s possible to market a business by celebrating the polyvocality of a creative community. But, what I also know is that this can’t happen if we are too firmly lodged within corporate logic that affirms logos at the expense of imagination. Art lives in that space of unknowing, of discovery, of humility, of curiosity, of surprise, of stumble, of uncertainty. It dwells in mystery.
I see a lot of artists being encouraged to act in line with business practices. What I see less often are businesses being encouraged to take their lessons from art.
