2023 marks the 10 year anniversary of  VILLAGE IN A CAN!
 
In 2013, Hochbaum began making tiny houses from the leftover scraps of wood from his frames. He initially created them to be a part of a large installation of paintings where the tiny houses would sit atop the frames. Once the installation came down, Hochbaum found himself with several hundred tiny houses. Not wanting them to just sit in storage, he came up with an idea to help raise money for his studio by offering them in cans which he noticed in a pile of recycling at his NYC studio. He figured the can was a perfect vessel for the hoses which were also created with what would be discarded material. He chose 11 hoses since this was a personal lucky number and drew up a label to be photocopied on sticker paper. Village in a can was born!
 
Since then, he made it an annual tradition to help raise money and get through the remnant scraps that collected in the studio during the year. 
 
Each house is a unique and one-of-a-kind miniature work of art. The demanding process takes weeks of preparation and detailing. This makes for a limited batch depending on how much wood scraps are available as well as how much the artist can stand to create. Besides the time, it can be a very taxing process on the hands and eyes dealing with such tiny objects!
 
But the efforts pay off when Hochbaum finally reaches the end and revels in the piles of houses born from the sawdust covered piles of would be trash. The time consuming process grants Hochbaum the time to reflect over the past years events and plan the next. It has unexpectedly become an important meditative time for the artist who will continue  his tradition as long as it feels right. 
 
Each can numbered and contains 11 unique houses.