Experimental Collaboration in Abstraction with fellow Albuquerque artists

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Experimental Collaboration with fellow Albuquerque artists

Begun in the Spring of 2007, we (Betsy Greenlee, Fred Yost, Jaci Fisher, Leila Hall, Jeanine Allen, Elaine Scott, Gaye Garrison and Jeff Potter) were inspired by previous artist/ writer collaborations, most notably the "Scribes Eight" and we strive to explore artistic genres we generally have not thought about attempting.  Abstract art came to mind and we chose to meet every six weeks and share our individual efforts at "making" abstract art from a commonly agreed "project" scope discussed at the previous meeting.  Herein describes our journey.  Gaye and Jeanine unfortunately had to drop out but Rod Groves joined the group in November 2008.

We  had a  Group Show entitled "Destination: Abstraction" which ran during May 2009 the Art Haus 66 Gallery in Albuquerque.  Our proposal :

Proposal for a Group Art Exhibit--Destination: Abstraction - Assemble any group of eight artists and you will surely capture at least one suffering from burnout. Our group of eight was brought together by this debilitating feeling. We discovered that we also shared a mutual interest in exploring both the nature of abstraction and the use of unfamiliar materials, techniques, and surfaces. We decided that we would meet every six weeks to share the outcome of our independent efforts on a project assignment that we had mutually agreed upon. To date, our experiments have included papermaking and single and multi-panel linoleum cut prints, drawings, paintings, and mixed media collages using a variety of fine art media such as watercolor, pastels, oil pastels, acrylics, fabric, and found objects. Originally, we had no intention of showing these projects publicly, but later we agreed that perhaps other artists might benefit from such an exhibit. As a group, we therefore propose to have a group show at the Art Haus 66 Gallery in May of 2009. The exhibit would include both images and text descriptions of the various projects, in an effort to highlight the evolutionary process of moving toward increased abstraction in our work.

UPDATE - JULY 2009 -The sum of our efforts are contained within the animated slide show seen above.  It was designed to be self-guiding and each slide shows for 2 - 5seconds.  There are ~ 245 images in the slide show.  It loops forever.  Enjoy!

Below is a chronological listing of our efforts between April 2007 and May 2009 which are shown in order in the animated slide show.  We have since done three additional projects so look below for our newest work.  Note that hyperlinks to these pages are no longer available.

• 4-28-07  (transform from a representational, realistic work into an abstract work using only a guideline of 4 – 6 stages)

• 6-09-07  (another abstract transformation)

•  8-26-07 meeting (series of 4 works exploring zooming in on a portion (25% of area) of the original representational work in subsequent steps and pushing the abstraction of the resulting smaller and smaller field of view)

• October & November 2007  (Pt. 1 - Representational work and it's derivative as a collage. Pt. 2 - Triptychs)

• January 13, 2008  (More Triptychs)

• March 8, 2008  (Series of progressive steps towards abstraction of the animal form)

• April 26, 2008 meeting (Architectural Abstraction theme)

• June 8 & July 20, 2008  (Pt. 1 Continue Architectural Abstraction theme.  Pt. 2 Any type of abstraction on a larger surface, e.g. 18" x 24" or larger)

• September 6, 2008 Night-time theme

•  November 2, 2008  - FAUVISM

• December 14, 2008  - Blind Contour Drawing

NEW - July 5, 2009 "Bas Relief Texture"

NEW - September 6, 2009 "Food"

NEW October 18, 2009 "Shadow Boxes"