BELLOWS FALLS — Project Space 9 is currently displaying a collage exhibit of eight artists through the first week in February.
On Jan. 21, from 4 to 7 p.m., Third Friday-goers may stop by to meet the artists and talk about the process and their work.
Using collage on a puzzle piece by Myra Ashcroft, a picture frame by Joe Eisenberg, and using found wood from forest and beach by Phyllis Rosser, eight artists stretch the process in delightful, serious and whimsical approaches to collage at Project Space 9.
Most of the artists in the exhibit also do other kinds of visual art, having come together to last summer for an “art camp.” Rooted in early Picasso and Braque artwork, collage deconstructs the world around us, and reconstructs it using found objects, paper, cloth – just a few of the material artists appropriate for creating a collage piece. Nothing is sacred, as you will see in the exhibit.
The three founders of the yearly “art camp” that yielded the pieces in 2010 for the exhibit, have met for over twenty years since graduate school and have stayed friends over the years: Robert McBride of Bellows Falls; Valerie Harris, formerly of Paris, now resettled on the southwest coast of France; and Helen Petkas who splits her time between Tribeca in New York City and Ashfield, Mass.
For the 2010 “art camp,” Harris said had been thinking about collage in relation to her painting.
“Using surrealist techniques: collage, stencils, plaster, rubbing, scrapping or anything you can think of not to not paint. Why? I am both a printmaker and painter and I have been wondering about how the same visual idea changes with the medium. So, I thought it would be fun to experiment with other mediums. Many surrealists were frustrated with the aestheticism of painting and started looking at other mediums. Think Schwitters, Max Ernst, Klee, Duchamp, Sonia Delaunay. So let us take our ideas be they visual, poetic or dear diary and surprise ourselves. Remember the Dada show at the modern? Let's do it!”
And a show was born.
Joining the original three were Linda Striedieck, Myra Ashcroft, Barbara Tarantino, Rita Gilbride, Phyllis Rosser, Mary Lou Gould and Joe Eisenberg.
Project Space 9 is a initiative of the Rockingham Arts and Museum Project (RAMP) which is located in the lobby of the Exner Block at 9 Canal St. in downtown Bellows Falls. The gallery is wheelchair accessible; call in advance (802-463-3252) for access. The show continues through the first week in February.