The Art Tribe Is Back at The Gallery Uptown

 

So what's an Art Tribe, in this case a group of artist friends who get together occasionally for lunch or wine and cheese to chat about life and art and sometimes to talk about doing a show together. In the past we've done some collaborative pieces but this year we did something a bit different, our theme is Beauty in the Ordinary. The Tribe members, Carol Cousineau, Bette DelVecchio, Barb Fugazzotto, Sandy Meyer, Annie Morgan and I, each did individual works.  Margaret Benefiel is another Tribe member but couldn’t participate this year.  She’s with us in spirit.

You’ll see paintings and collages along with scarves, table runners and assemblages and some surprise pieces. 

The exhibit is up now and the reception is Friday July 11, 5:30 to 7:30.  Hope you can come see, it's a great show!

A New Beginning

 My muse apparently is still on vacation.  I have starts all over the studio, this one being the most recent.  I start but inspiration either leaves or I'm not sure where to go next -- or I fear messing it up.

But a better thing to do I think, is to look at it and wonder why I started this way.  I don't have an image in mind other than watercolor landscape but looking at this I see beach as though I'm seeing the landscape from out in the water.  That makes sense to me.  I do love being on the water but sitting on shore looking out at water works for me too.  I may just leave this one as it is or it could become more abstract.  

Hopefully my muse will return and help me find my way with this and a few others that are in the works.  Meanwhile I continue to do a quick morning sketch and sort more supplies that can go away.

On another note -- The Art Tribe exhibit at the Gallery Uptown came down yesterday.  I posted my piece in the exhibit last week.  I'm still lamenting the lost piece.  I truly like it so much better than the rushed piece that ended up in the exhibit.  Here's how it looked before the last two worked on it.

What's so wonderful about this is that it truly represents everyone taking time to think about where they were going to go with it and I can see them in what they did.  That and it has the work on one of the Tribe who was unable to work on my replacement piece because of health issues.  I do hope this turns up eventually but at least I have this photo. I may have to print it on a tee shirt.

Working on Some Collaborative Pieces

 And one of those pieces is an Exquisite Corpse.  These are two views of my section in process.

There are 7 of us involved in this.  For my portion I'm experimenting with doing some abstract

 combining acrylics and watercolor.

If you aren't familiar with Exquisite Corpse here's a brief description. Each of us adds to a

composition in sequence by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person

contributed. All I could see when I started this was a row of black and white checks and a bit

of the quin gold.

A bit of history from Wikipedia -- I edited the information.  The technique was invented

by surrealists and is similar to an old parlour game called consequences in which players

write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the

next player for a further contribution. Surrealism principal founder André Breton reported that it

started in fun, but became playful and eventually enriching. Breton said the diversion started

about 1925, but Pierre Reverdy wrote that it started much earlier, at least as early as 1918.

Later the game was adapted to drawing and collage, in a version called picture

consequences, with portions of a person replacing the written sentence fragments of the

original. The person is traditionally drawn in four steps: The head, the torso, the legs and the

feet with the paper folded after each portion so that later participants can't see earlier

portions.The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when Surrealists first played the

game, "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau." ("The exquisite corpse shall drink the new

 wine.")

My grandson and I play it once in awhile.  When we play we do people; my artist friends and

I are doing whatever we choose.  This one had no original instruction so who knows what the

 end result will be.

And speaking of my art friends, I'm going to introduce them to you over the next few weeks.

Maybe not one a week but I hope to introduce all of them before our 3rd annual Art Tribe Exhibit 

at the Gallery Uptown in July.