Some thoughts on “An Upending Collaboration”

“Upended” artists Sarah Alexander, Kathline (Kate) Carr, Tatiana Flis, Georgina (George) Lewis, Virginia (Ginny) Mahoney, Alexandra Rozenman, and Sylvia Vander Sluis joined forces to collaborate by Zoom, email and postal mail in a project that for most was a new experience.

Tatiana │ The birth of the project: 

Early on, when Melissa asked for group projects to be incorporated in  “Upended,”  I came up with an idea for an exquisite corpse-like project. The process made sense to me - not being able to create with others. Being blind to what is going on around you. Only being able to control what is at your fingertips. It fit the moment.  

I took a leap, and told Melissa my idea …. and it was a resounding yes! So, I sent out the call for participation, thinking only two or three other artists would be interested. When six came forward, it was very exciting. It spoke strongly about how much we all needed a connection to others.  

Once we came up with some basic rules of engagement, we all went on our way, meeting a few times to check in and refine some details. In one meeting, Alexandra spoke about her personal collage project, and we all really connected to it. Alexandra ended up sending each of us a page of her project for inspiration or inclusion into our own work. The collages she sent ended up defining the personal space of each artist’s allotted area. 

Sarah:  

I wanted to make something that reflected the feeling of living in “pause” mode. This past year has felt very strange to me, as if we were all under some spell where we were stuck in  purgatory, waiting, restless, yet nestled in. As hard as it has been, I also felt content in my comfortable home, working from my studio. My world became smaller.

My piece is in the form of some kind of limb, made out of steel, covered in organic grassy feathery shapes. I used shapes I already had, which I thought was fitting since we are all “making do” with what we have on hand. I wanted it to reflect a feeling of being enchanted, under a strange cruel spell, like Daphne transforming into a Laurel tree. 

Kate:  

I have tried to keep making things, even when it has felt futile and brought me scant happiness. How ironic that total freedom to be in the studio all day has at times felt very unnerving. Even when it feels like my wheels are spinning in mud, I derive a great deal of joy from watching the birds in my yard. And joy, I’ve found, can be restorative.  

The first thing I do in the morning is to look at the skyline of Ragged Mountain from my window, and check the branches for bird visitors, or listen for their songs if the windows are open. In spring and summer, their riotous cacophony begins at 3:30 in the morning. These days, it is quieter. 

My segment of the Exquisite Corpse in “Upended” began with blue monotypes on screen-printing fabric, partially created with precipitation from an ice storm. I’ve had many ideas, fits and starts, fabric strewn, sewn together and torn apart, and moved about relentlessly. But finally I’ve come back to the yard, the birds, and a piece of blue sky. 

Tatiana:  

Regarding my own work, 2020 was a blender in which my studio practice was literally spun around in and… upended! Grasping any resilience I had left in me, I took advantage of all the uncertainty and began taking online classes, which focused on painting and silencing the artist’s “inner judge.”  

I do not consider myself a painter. A sculptor? Yes. A printmaker? When I have access to equipment, sure. A painter? Nope... It was liberating. I found myself approaching my work from an inside-out view to an outside-in perspective. My imagery went from a focus on solid whole forms to fragmented shadows and abstracted spaces. I started working in-depth with window shapes, and how this form and structure could read as a comforting protection to bleak isolation.  

As I continued to think about the exquisite corpse project, Alexandra’s collage shapes began to form structural mass to me - so much so that they ended up becoming the basis for my contribution. My section plays with ideas of duality, from light to dark, to the softness and rigidity of our surroundings. 

Alexandra: 

After an unexpected and needed move out of my studio space, I started working on smaller pieces of paper adding ink and watercolor to my older drawings that I found around the house. Everything felt disconnected. My thoughts began separating these older images into shapes inside the watercolors, and I was creating various combinations of watercolors and drawings, choosing sections and making shapes out of old ideas - selecting, dissecting, and connecting. This gave me big room for new ideas. I was inside the process - when what you are creating makes itself for you, because you are giving it everything it needs in exactly the right way, at exactly the right time. 

My thoughts materialized into shapes, shapes into images, and images into untold stories. 

When Tatiana invited us to participate in this project, I saw it as a wonderful possibility for another step forward. I was ready to work with leftovers from other artists' work on paper. One artist who had given me pieces from her drawings was Tatiana herself! First, I thought that I wanted to make a book to be presented on a separate pedestal with gloves to allow viewers to see the story, but when I looked through the abstract images and started working, I ended up with a small accordion book. I was very nicely surprised when I saw how it was installed -- happily sitting on a shelf made by Tatiana, with buildings, doors and windows! 

George:  

I was thinking about ruptures and junctures. I wanted to make some kind of disco shroud of a memory quilt that could inspire but also shake people up. My portion is made from materials that were available to me at the time, some of which are quite personal. I chose them based on a mix of formal and conceptual conditions: color, meaning, and a level of discordancy. Gold mylar is pretty but it's reflectivity references needed societal action and its prismatic nature can undermine our sense of physicality in ways both joyous and confusing. Other components include stickers of drawings I’ve made during the year - breathing exercises in graphite and angry red paint - and a variety of extremely colorful food packaging, including Japanese KitKat bars. I bought the KitKats at Kan Man foods in Quincy, a place I felt safe early on because staff and shoppers took proper precautions. I’m not a painter but somewhere at the back of my mind I also have Klimt’s the Kiss swirling around. I wanted to bring the divergent together and achieve a happy state. 

Ginny:  

I had been saving vegetable net for quite a long time when the pandemic hit.  Having trouble thinking about what to make next in my studio, or whether I could even think about making, I washed and organized the netting. I stitched together the green nets, not really knowing what might transpire. After several weeks of stitching, I put away the big net. When I joined this project, I had no idea what I might do, and I had never participated in something like this. After we received our area assignments, I decided that I must use the net that had its start at the beginning of being upended by the shut-down. The net became a symbol of struggles experienced by so many – food, job, and housing insecurity, with little or no safety net. The small stitched assemblages from which the net hangs allude to living a make-shift life, making something from nothing. The thin iridescent threads holding up the net are a glimmer of tenuous hope. 

Sylvia:  

The pandemic, while suffocating at times, also provided much more time for my art practice. My studio is my solace and a place of endless possibility and joy. I missed seeing friends - and then this exquisite-corpse project came along. A collaboration with other artists at a distance!  Doing something I had never done before really appealed to me! 

I had taken apart one of my paper and chicken-wire sculptures because it didn’t work. Seeing it in pieces was more interesting to me, and I decided to keep the parts around. This project, with its opportunity for improvisation and commentary on the upheaval of 2020, lent itself perfectly to the character of this dismantled sculpture.  

My section sprawls on the floor, one end made of twisted and crumpled paper, looking much like a blown-apart body. Bits of tree branches and other plant material strewn over the body and floor lead to a long, metal remnant with fierce points. The piece reflects the emotional impact that this period of pervasive anxiety, dislocation, and pain has had on so many people.