Background: These shadowboxes were created late autumn 2023 by artist Barbara Kronau-Sorensen. They were first installed in the front windows of the Asian Island Grocery store in Palatine, IL in February 2024.  The owner of this Indian and Pakistani store wanted to raise more awareness of the beauty in India and Islam, and was thrilled to have artwork in the front window.  The timing, thank fully, also coincided with the Ramadan season of 2024. 

The shadowboxes contain fairy lights which illuminate the different levels and the cutout windows. One of the boxes also contains a working clock on the face of one of the towers. There is a color changing light wand on the bottom of the boxes, which shines upwards to change the background sky color to give a sense of the change from dawn to dusk.

The boxes are made of cardboard which artist Barb Sorensen gathered from local grocery stores and LeCurbside shop in Buffalo Grove, IL.

"The Shadowbox Love Dance" or "The Windy Waltz of the Shadowboxes" (background story by Barb Kronau-Sorensen)
c/p 2024 Barbara Kronau-Sorensen / Emerald City Music Productions, Inc.
This is the story of how the boxes were made.  I feel it got a bit lengthy as I was writing it, but it is a fun read. Hope you enjoy it.

Hi my name is Barb Sorensen. I am a singer songwriter by trade. I tour for my original pop-rock-country-folk-rock-music.

In between, I like to help other businesses with their advertising and marketing. One of my clients is a small Indian and Pakistani grocery store. In late autumn 2023, the store owner wanted to include art displays in her store. I loved the idea and  began researching online to find some appropriate ideas. I studied other store windows and found some wonderful ideas, but nothing that I could create without a big expense. 2023 was still a "rebuild year" for my company and the store after COVID, so there was no budget to create some of the fun things I found online. 

After sitting and browsing through Pinterest for way to many hours, I gave up and went to sleep. In the morning as I was driving to my errands, I came across a beautiful giant sheet of flat clean cardboard sitting at the curb by a garbage bin.  Now mind you, I am an artist. That means, when materials like this appear, they seem to just cry out to be used in some fun project.  I remembered the small table top shadowboxes I had seen at friends houses and on Pinterest.  Instantly I knew I needed to make 3 giant shadow boxes, that they needed to have temples and mosques in them, and that they would be the artwork to install at the store.  I pulled over to the side of the road, and loaded this sheet of cardboard into my van, and took off.   I needed more than one sheet to create the multiple levels, and I would also need some styrofoam to keep the layers separated. The universe seemed to be listening to my ideas......

That evening as I went to Walmart to purchase a new hard drive, I saw the perfect cardboard pieces in the store.  The only problem was that they were still part of the boxes that held the giant screen televisions which were on sale.  I asked the clerk if they happened to have an empty box like that in the back from the display units. Sadly he told me "no".  Thereupon, I  briefly pondered on whether I should buy the TV just for the box. I considered my options of what I would do with it, or where to put such a big TV in my tiny condo. I quickly realized that this idea was not going to work logistically nor financially.  Not a moment later, a customer walked up and bought one of the giant screen televisions. "How timely", I thought! Maybe I could ask him to save the box for me. Maybe I could follow him home, help him unpack it, and take the box away. Surely he would be happy to have the help and save himself some time from cutting it down for the trash!   But I felt a bit awkward to try that routine, and I hesitated to ask. I knew that in this world of people who negatively judge, fear strangers, and are quick to condemn and stigmatize others as weird or odd, that it might not be such a great idea after all. I decided to wait and find cardboard elsewhere. I left the store empty handed.

Later that evening, I went shopping at a local Aldi's grocery store. Browsing the aisles, I found the exact sized pieces I needed. Unfortunately, the sheets were part of a display. The sheets were placed between layers of paper towel rolls and between layers of packages of toilet paper, to keep them standing up straight for the display.  After deciding it was better to ask first than to just take,  I turned around to talk to the stock clerk. He had a giant cart next to him into which he was tossing the empty boxes from products he was restocking on the shelves.  Amidst that pile of boxes, I also spotted another giant sheet of clean flat cardboard. I inquired if I could have it, and he gifted me with that giant piece of cardboard.  Yay! Then I asked him for more and pointed to the ones in the display. He was able to give me one more piece. But I needed 6 more. He offered me a bunch of smaller boxes instead.  I thanked him and studied the smaller boxes briefly before hesitantly taking a handful of them too.  I knew they were too small and would not work. Still I was wiling to try.  I put  them all into my van and went home.  The next day, I went back to the same store and asked the clerk if he had any new sheets.  Still, he refused, saying they needed them to pack the cardboard boxes down at night for the recycler when he comes by in the morning. I was grateful for what I had received so far,  so I just thanked him again, and  drove home. 

The next day, Friday morning, I was driving around the streets in  my neighborhood. For some reason, I decided to take the back roads to my work project. On the way, I thought about the guy at Walmart from the night before, who bought a giant screen TV.  I wondered if he lived in this neighborhood and if I dared to drive by his house to see if he put the box out yet. Or maybe, I thought, with some luck, someone else might have purchased one too.  Just then I drove by a cul de sac.  I noticed that one of the houses had put their garbage at the curb and had a stack of cardboard there. Amidst that stack, was a giant screen television box from Walmart in perfect condition! LOL!!! What a find. I pulled up in my van, jumped out, took out my pocket knife and set to work disassembling the sides of the box. I took some of the  styrofoam and shoved it into my van with a sly and silly grin on my face, feeling a bit like the "Grinch Who Stole Christmas".  Then, I tried to get the cardboard sheets into the van too. But there was not enough space. The van was too full.  It still held the smaller cardboard boxes that I took from the store as a backup plan.  I made a quick decision and  decided I didn't really need the smaller ones. And with as much dignity, grace, and style as I could muster..... and praying that no one was watching me so I would not die of embarrassment and shame..... I quickly and very generously swapped my cardboard boxes with the homeowners giant  cardboard box. Inwardly I giggled at what I felt was a ridiculous situation...swapping one man's trash for another man's garbage. LOL!  I took his giant sheets of cardboard, and very neatly stacked the smaller pieces from my van, next to his trash bin.  Finally, the big sheets fit into the van and I took off.  Laughing all the away ho ho ho ho.....

I still needed 4 more sheets for the project.... So the next day I drove to another Aldi's store but in a neighboring town. There I  acquired 2 more sheets. After that, I drove to yet another local suburb, found another Aldi's, and got 2 more sheets. Finally, I had all the pieces I needed except for the styrofoam.  I still needed more styrofoam. I checked the dumpster at my condo daily for a week, without any luck. One morning as I was driving to another work project,  I saw a garbage truck across the street in the other subdivision. It was a very windy day, and I noticed how the garbage men were struggling with keeping the trash from flying out of the truck as they transferred it. I drove past them to the next street to browse LeCurbside shop for styrofoam.  Then a thought occurred to me.  Perhaps, in this wind, there might be a piece of lightweight styrofoam that would fly from the garbage truck. Surely, there is more styrofoam in this world, than one house. So I drove up slowly behind the truck and sure enough, just as I got closer, a big gust of wind knocked out a piece of styrofoam. The perfect piece of styrofoam flew out of the truck, into the air, spun around a few times, and landed on the grass beside my van as if to say "You beckoned? Here I am!!!". Almost dis-believing the timing and my amazing good fortune at "conjuring" it up, I stopped the car and jumped out  to grab the piece.  To the surprised look of the garbage men, who were also running to retrieve the errant piece, I grabbed it first. I smiled a sheepish simle at them and quickly managed to explained that I was an artist in need of this exact piece of styrofoam for a project. And that I had just prayed for the perfect piece and it happened to fly from their truck just then. They looked a bit bewildered and bemused because it all happened so quickly and was so weird. Then I gave them a quick nod of thanks, and they all had a good laugh. I ran back to the street and stuffed that piece of foam into the back of my van, closed the lid and took off. I went home feeling quite satisfied. "Yes" I thought, "there is a God and the Universe still cares".

The next day I went to the local library's maker lab where they have big work tables and proper cutting tools. I drew the design and cut the sheets for each layer of the box.  I was on a tight deadline to install some sort of artwork at the store, since the front window was currently bare and not very eye appealing. I worked all day on cutting the cardboard design.

In the evening I took my project home and continued piecing the shadow boxes together with a hot glue gun. Yes, there were hundreds of tiny bits of cut cardboard pieces from the window cutouts, tiny static clingy styrofoam balls all over the dark green carpet, and strings of hot glue and tools all over the floor. By 3 am the project was finished and beautiful. Yay! I could now go to sleep comfortably.

Next, I needed to install the fairy lights into the boxes. However, they were not available at the stores in the area and I had other projects to attend to. I had no time to  research purchasing fairy lights online.  Instead, I used plain white Christmas lights as a temporary fill-in, and installed the art display in the front window.  I felt they were a bit too bulky for the delicate nature of the shadowboxe,s but they did the trick temporarily. The owner was very happy and her clients admired the display.

The next day, was another very windy day. I drove to the store feeling satisfied and grateful that the sheets of cardboard were finally out of my van, that the art installation was successful, and that the cardboard project was done. I happily looked forward to that afternoon to have some space and time to clean out the other items from my van so I could use it to go camping again. I reflected upon my experience of creating these shadowboxes and wondered if I would ever make any more. Considering the time involved in creating these boxes, and the lack of availability at stores for providing the sheets, I decided that maybe I would make more in the future. But for now,  I was done with shadowboxes. I also wondered if I would be able to stick to that resolution! LOL  I wondered if I would forget it, if I ever came across another beautiful giant sheet of flat clean cardboard. I decided I better guard myself against that defect of character.  I then put the thought of more shadowboxes out of my mind and drove to the store to check on the display.  I had to be honest with myself and admit to the universe, that I did indeed enjoy creating these boxes and how beautiful they turned out. Either way, I decided I had too many other projects to finish up and needed to spend my time getting those out of the way. 

Aa I arrived at the store on this very very windy day, I felt proud of my first shadowbox art installation. I again wondered what other scenes I might make if I ever made another shadowbox. I had only made two boxes for the store's windows, but deep inside,  I still felt that the display needed a third box, especially if it were to be a traveling exhibit.  I pulled my van into a parking spot and got out. As I walked to the back of the van, and headed towards the store, I saw that the wind had just then, blown a giant (double sized) piece of brand new flat clean cardboard from seemingly out of nowhere  in my direction. It flew over my head and towards the SUV parked next to my van.  When the sheet landed, it lodged itself at the base of the back tires of the SUV as if to say " I'm waiting here for you".  I laughed! Was this a sign? This was a beautiful brand new flat clean piece of cardboard,! It seemed as if the universe conspired to invite me to create another box.  Or was it my thoughts that came first?  hmmm. Either way, I tugged on the cardboard and retrieved it. This piece came from the side of a bicycle box. I guessed the wind had blown it out of a local area dumpster from someone who just purchased a new bike.  How nice, I thought, that some kid got a new bike.   Then I tried to stuff the sheet into my van.  I tried and tried again and then pondered on why I couldn't get it into the van. The wind was blowing my hair into my face and all around which made it difficult to see what I was doing. It was so strong that it blew me sideways and back and forth. I still kept trying to put it into the van. I was hurrying the process because I feared that the wind might blow so hard as to put a crease in the center of the sheet. I  didn't notice that the sheet was twice the size of my previous sheets and that was the reason it would not fit into the van.  

I began to feel willing to let go of the sheet and toss it into the trash. I thought that maybe I was being ridiculous about this whole "universe listening" thing. Just then another huge burst of wind blew against the sheet from the other side. This gust of wind very neatly bent the sheet in half.  Exactly in half!  Now I felt sad that it had a crease in it and felt I might not be able to use it anymore. But where to put it? I looked around but couldn't see a garbage can anywhere, and to let it fly back into the wind, might damage another car or hurt someone. So I tried to put it into my van again. Lo and behold, it fit in perfectly now! The wind gust had made a perfect crease right down the center of it. I laughed and realized it was truly meant to be that I build the third box. 

The display in the store's front window consisted of only 2 boxes. The other windows had vinyl signs covering them for special sales. I felt grateful to have some quiet time between the first installation and the creation of the third box.  

I brought my new cardboard home and put it in the condo......where it sat and sat and sat and sat.. it protected the walls from chairs bumped up against them, from visitors who got up a bit too quickly after supper, it protected the glass doors of the cabinets from rubber balls bounced by kids friends that came to play, and it made for a great non-distracting backdrop for Zoom face-to-face video calls. Still, the time  has come for these sheets to be cut and assembled into the third shadow box. 

The art display for the grocery store ended it's successful display run, and was finally uninstalled and taken to the condo in June 2024. 

Yes, this condo now has two shadowboxes in need of slight repairs, and just sitting here for months now. It also holds that folded sheet of cardboard gifted by the wind. 

The two finished boxes need to have their Christmas lights replaced with micro fairy lights which are less intrusive. Their color changing light wands on the bottom also need to be reinstalled. The boxes each also need a nice wooden protective box with hinges and a framed plexiglass lid to protect them from the  elements of future installations.  The third box is still in the flat cardboard stage waiting for the perfect scene to come to mind of how to cut it. A few ideas and suggestions came to mind, but nothing solid so far. As an artist, I have learned to trust the timing and the ideas will come when me and the universe are ready.

So that is the status of the shadow boxes as of 11/16/2024.  Preparations for the high winter Christian holidays are gathering speed. That means that thoughts of having a nice clean and uncluttered condo come to mind.  The drive to finish this project, get it into a gallery space, and out of this condo is now in full swing. My e.t.a. for finishing the boxes and finding a place to store them is December 31. Wish me luck. If you would like the shadowbox exhibit  in your space, please send me a message [emcy.fans @gmail.com] and I will get back to you  as quickly as I can. Thanks for your interest.  Peace, Barb"

Updates:

04/03/2025 - I have 9 new smaller boxes depicting mosques and temples, which hang from the cieling. I am thrilled with the way they are turning out. Some have lights inside, some dont. The giant 46" boxes are still awaiting repairs. I was hoping to build some big wood boxes with plexiglass front windows for proterction, but have not been able to source the materials I need. So I am just repairing them with more cardboard from some giant sheets I found at LeCurbside shop :)   I really like that store some times. LOL. Peace, Barb

When: February - April 2024 - open to viewing at all hours. See Store-front window

Where: The Asian Island Grocery Store - 1202 East Dundee Rd., Palatine, IL. 

Free admission, Free parking