Wednesday 20 April 2016

What a great event...

week this past one has been, with two openings for the Call & Response event that started for the organizers over a year ago.

Alison Masters and Gary Deatheridge have done an amazing job, with over 50 participating artists, and dozens of artworks from all disciplines.  For an explanation of the show's concept, do see the end of this post...it's wordy, and comprehensive.

Eileen Gidman, Laura Leeder and I decided to collaborate on a board book since we were so taken by the totality of the initial show that introduced the concept.  We each chose four of the pieces or ideas presented at the initial 'Call', selected some of my Gelli prints or painted papers and tore into it.

These photos are from the play day we had:





Eileen hard at play

Ditto for Laura

Fun and Games
The finished book was surprisingly (to me) cohesive, and definitely a tribute to the 'Call' we heard on February 27th.  Can you tell who did what?















I also did a piece on my own called Community Ties, as I was so struck by the amazing community of artists, in this larger community we call home, all eager to support each other to create.  It's a wonderful thing to see this kind of connection in a town.

'Community Ties'  14" x 11" mixed media  © Win Dinn





If you've made it this far, I'm SO impressed with your perseverance.  Thanks for listening and taking a look at a very small corner of Call & Response.  For further explanation of the event, please read on, and enjoy.  My apologies for not getting photos of the event for you;  somehow my camera had a desire to stay home both evenings.

Call & Response - the Concept.

'In blues, there is a tradition of call and response where one musician creates a riff, known as the call, and another musician comes back with their own complementary, spontaneous musical riff, known as the response.  This process, or play, pushes each musician to carefully feel and attend to what the other is doing, and to respond by further interpreting and innovating the original riff.  They thus mutually create new music, opening up fresh musical combinations and new possibilities for sonic collaboration.  This call and response model has been applied for this event across a number of artistic forms and disciplines, in order to stimulate new artistic works from local artists.

With merely a month to create work based on the initial two-hour 'call', you could expect incomplete works, new directions, failure, fantasy and collaborations - in other words, something truly unique.'

It's now onwards and upwards as I work towards a show in a near-by city which opens in late August.  It's one being done with my students, which should be entitled Students Teach the Teacher, I think! Happy creating to you until next week.

18 comments:

  1. Fascinating work by the three of you and the 'Community Ties' pieces is lovely.

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    1. Many thanks, Val - I was so inspired by the Call, and very much enjoyed seeing all the work that arose from it. It was a fascinating project all round!

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  2. What a great idea! Your book definitely shows that back and forward of the call and response. As you say, a cohesive piece. It's amazing how things come together when we learn from and respond to each other's work.

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    1. It was a fascinating process, Tracy, and I loved the interplay throughout.

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  3. It was a very unique and fun event and I enjoyed participating and collaborating with you and Eileen!

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    1. Wasn't it just, Laura - a terrific concept, and I, too, loved collaborating on that book!

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  4. Fantastic pieces of all of you and I am just in love with your 'Community Ties' !
    Amazing!

    Happy weekend Win Dinn!

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    1. Many thanks, Susi, and happy weekend right back at you!

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  5. Oh gosh that sounds fantastic, and the book did turn out great. Did you bind all the pages (maybe that's what you mean by board book!), or did everyone do tip-ins?

    And your Community Ties piece is lovely, I really like the layers and colors.

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    1. I had a children's board book on hand (already sanded and gessoed for re-use). I painted the edges with 3-4 different copper and gold metallic paints, we chose Gelli prints and/or painted papers (I always have a huge stash on hand from demoing for workshops), added script/penwork/drawings, etc. as desired, and then I spray-glued each piece into the book and embellished the front and back covers. It was quite the process, and great fun!

      Thanks for the kudos on both - such an inspiring 'Call'!

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  6. Loving the pages Win and the "Community Ties", brilliant. Happy crafting, Angela x

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    1. Thanks, Angela - it was great fun in all directions!

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  7. Your board book is brilliant, the three of you have really made this work. Your Community Ties piece is gorgeous, so clever xx

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    1. Thanks Sue - it was great to collaborate with Laura and Eileen on the book, and Community Ties was one I really enjoyed doing.

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  8. Not sure how I missed this post ... probably because I haven't been on Blogger myself for a while. Great to see this post on your collaborative book. Yes, surprisingly, it's beautifully cohesive. I knew your words so I had the advantage of knowing which layouts were yours.
    I'm with Tracy!
    Excellent project masterfully executed, BRAVO!

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    1. Many thanks Alice - it was definitely a great thing to work together on the book - we had a lot of fun choosing papers, words and images, and I love the playfulness of the whole thing!

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  9. Some really fabulous artwork here how wonderful to work together as a group. And thanks for teaching me what call and response is I love learning new things...since I'm forgetting so many old things...lol

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    1. Oh Deann, you make me laugh everytime. I was stunned at the artistic creativity that arose out of applying the blues call and response to art. It's likely a first in the world applying all disciplines, and it was amazing!

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