Change Catcher

Lee Bontecou, I found this image on web and did not have info...

Sunday I learned that Lee Bontecou kept her change in one of these!

 I was doing a little Sunday afternoon web clicking- looking up Lee Bontecou  to read up on why she disapeared from the art world back in the 1970's. Reading part of Calvin Tompkin's article in the New Yorker from 2003, he mentions visiting her studio in Pennsylvania and viewing the decades of work she had there.

Lee Bontecou, Untitled, 1962

Apparently she had been using one of her large wall reliefs from the 1950s as a Change Holder! How cool is that.... and dang, how heavy was that?! Do you think she kept nickels in one compartment and quarters in the other? do all the holes open up to one chamber.. hmm I don't really know how they are constructed. It reminds me how many artist's are so much less precious about their work then others... they want it to be touched, and repositioned, and moved around, and used..

Lee Bontecou, Untitled, 1961, Welded steel, canvas, wired, velvet, 59h x 39 1/2w x 21 1/8, Collection of Walker Art Museum, Gift of T.B. Walker Fund, 1966

This piece of art becomes a functional object (which really it already was, as all "art" is a functional, right? right?). Rather then designing a "change catcher" she makes use of what she is already making. I think I would like to store my socks in one.

Lee Bontecou, Untitled, 1959-1960, 58h x 99w x 15d in.

Collection of Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art

(I couldn't find the whole article online, so I would be much obliged if anyone has it or a subscription to the New Yorker where one can read it online)