The Joy In Creating The Holiday Gift Project Cardboard Apartment By: Mark Borow, Co-Owner McConnell & Borow, Inc/ PropArt

I was sitting around feeling very sorry for myself. After two years of this miserable recession I had let most of my staff go and was wandering around my work studio pretty much by myself. The jobs had started to come back… slowly, very slowly, and I was finally able to bring back my studio manager and my first assistant, part time. It was the middle of October and one of my clients, Sara Clark from the advertising agency JWT called me and asked me if I was interested in contributing to a project they were working on. It had to do with helping veterans get back on their feet, setting them up in housing and supplying them with support to keep them on the steady. It was a pro-bono project, but they could swing a budget for materials and labor. Well, I figured, I certainly had enough time on my hands, so why not? I could help the veterans and get some of my guys back in here to work, a win-win situation. As it turned out, it was a win-win-WIN proposition. Aside from the cardboard project being incredibly fun and productive for us, once we started working with the veterans, I realized how lucky I was. I at least had a roof over my head. My economic problems would pass. These guys came to the studio with a great attitude and incredible enthusiasm despite their real difficulties. I got a lot more out of this project than I ever put in.

As for the construction of the cardboard apartment and accessories, the fabrication was pretty straight forward. I’m in a business that regularly fabricates props and models for print ads,
TV commercials and other various three dimensional projects. We work in all sorts of materials, everything from cardboard to acrylic, cast resin, clay, anything we need. I was supplied me with picture reference of things the SUS veterans would have in their apartments. Anything from a full efficiency kitchen, to a bed and dresser, to a pair of shoes, a clock or even a plate of food! I drew sketches based on this reference and from these sketches me and my crew, Wendy Bryan, Marc Van Cauwenbergh, Rob Robinson, Kerry Coutu, and Ben Bronstein started fabricating the props.

The trickiest pieces were the big pieces: the kitchen, the bed, and the armoire. Since they would be moved around and handled a lot, we made these pieces with an inner armature of light weight particle board and covered it with cardboard. We used laser cut pieces for some of the incredibly small detailed pieces like the numbers and hands on the clock, the keys on the computer keyboard, and the pattern on the bed quilt. As we progressed with the props we found new and exciting ways to handle the cardboard. It could be cut, bent or folded to give us some really complex shapes. The shoes, the drumstick on the plate, even the telephone receiver were done with these techniques. One day, some of the SUS consumers came by the studio and helped fabricate the clothes that hung in the armoire. Their enthusiasm and unexpected skills made for a fun and productive day.

To learn more about Mark Borow and McConnell & Borow, Inc/ PropArt please visit http://www.propartynyc.com.