I was invited to participate in The Collaborative Body in October of 2020, a really cool, socially distanced group project at the Salem Art Association Art Annex. Kathy Dinges, the Community Arts Education Director at Salem Art Association, describes the project:
The Collaborative Body is a dynamic group project in which 17 artists collaborated to transform the Salem Art Association’s Annex! The project is loosely based on various ideas in the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse, in which players would take turns drawing a portion of a body (head, torso, legs) on paper. The previous artist’s contribution was folded over and hidden until the end, when the paper was unfolded to reveal the “exquisite corpse” – the unusual, unplanned, and eclectic interpretation of the body. The ever-changing nature of this project is unlike the corpse– more like a series of interactions. It creates an interwoven, living piece of art, infused with the creative minds and practices of a variety of artists. Participating artists are Eilish Gormley, Rich McCloud, Corrine Loomis Dietz, Bonnie Hull, Erik Brambila, Grace Lundblade, Heidi Preuss Grew, Jessica Amos, Jo Hockenhull, Jim Hockenhull, Jodie Garrison, Katy Vigeland, Leo Cuanas, Cassandra Deatherage, Dayna Collins, Nicole Servin, and Tim Knight.
This project came together during covid19 in response to artists wanting to interact with other artists in a safe way, and encouraged playfulness, experimentation and collaboration.
Over the past six months, I made five appearances. I focused on doing photo transfers directly on the wall, which I embellished on subsequent visits (and other artists also added their own changes to the portraits). It was great fun and I recorded my experience through a series of photos.
On my first visit in early November, work on the walls had already started.
My plan for this first visit was to glue black and white portraits of Australian convicts onto the walls.
On my second visit in mid November, I went around to the portraits and using a wet sponge, began the process of removing the paper backing from the photocopies, leaving the inked image on the wall.
By the time I returned in early December, several of the portraits had been modified, embellished, and given new identities.
In January, I did some embellishing myself, adding bits of gold, crowns, and quotes.
I also pulled out paint and created some stripes of color on a blank portion of wall.
On my final visit the first of February, lots had happened.
And in no particular order, some photos from the many walls over the past few months.
What a great project, and it was a treat to be included.
I don’t ever crave extraordinary moments anymore. Just small, gentle hums of beauty streaming from below, above, and beyond simply from paying attention. Sound. Light. Shadow. Art. Warmth. The night. The morning. Dreams that are not faraway but exist right here — already in my days, hands, and heart.
Victoria Erickson
One of the projects I’ve started working on is actually a resumption of something I started a year ago, a series of long, slender, wood cradled panels (4×48 inches). All five boards had been painted black with some bands of color already added, but today I pulled them out of the basement, hung them on my rolling wall, and while painting a large canvas on the opposite wall (another long abandoned project resurrected last week), I used the leftover paint from that painting on the tall, slender panels. Layer by layer, band by band. I know that the swaths of color I used to create my Emotional Alignments series influenced this current project. Bands and swaths again, but a bit wonkier and whimsical. At least for today. I’ll be working on these right on into the new year.
Some close-up peeks from different sections of the five panels:
Painting should call out to the viewer . . . and the surprised viewer should go to it, as if entering a conversation.
Roger de Piles, 1676
The dust has hardly settled and I’m already looking ahead to 2021, although I’ve got a jump start on a couple of projects while it is still 2020. But first, my show at RiverSea, Emotional Alignments, gets hung next week and the opening reception will be held on Saturday, January 9, from 12-8 pm during the Astoria Art Walk. I’ll be at the gallery that evening from 5-8 pm if you happen to be out and about.
Nine of 20 pieces in the Emotional Alignments show, opening January 9, 2021, at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon
Most people would probably wait until after a show has opened before starting work on another show, but I’m not most people. So forward I go, taking full advantage of making art during a pandemic. Early preparations have begun for a May, 2021 show at Salem on the Edge. Very preliminary preparations, lining up which boards I want to use, getting them painted, plaster applied, sanding them outside (weather permitting), and then getting them sealed and ready for applying oil and cold wax. As of this writing, I have no idea what my theme or composition will be – that will come in the new year.
In my next post, I’ll share about another project I’m currently working on . . . . .
So many tasks to attend to once the art has been made. First up, is removing the tape from the backs of the cradled wood panels, sanding the backs of the boards to clean up painty messes (I got a little hand sander for an early Christmas gift!), titling and signing the pieces, getting them all wired, and then photographed and inventoried. Whew.
And in between all these tasks, I needed to write my Artist Statement, something I have been laboring over for the past few weeks.
In the midst of this frenzy of activity, I realized that all 20 boards wouldn’t fit in either of our small, economical cars, so on Saturday we loaded up Howard’s car with 16 of the boards (amazing we crammed in 16), and headed to Astoria, where I planned to apply the final coat of cold wax to seal the paintings.
We got the paintings unloaded and I took over the funky upstairs space at our Astoria Beach House. I covered the table and floors and got set up to give my right arm a workout: slathering on a thin layer of cold wax with a putty knife, setting up extra heaters to warm up the upstairs, and then letting the wax dry and set on the pieces in preparation for a final buff and polish the next day.
The paintings are now buffed and polished, nestled downstairs in the extra bedroom, and I even managed to finish my Artist’s Statement this morning while it stormed and rained outside.
The details for my upcoming show:
Emotional Alignments: an emotional response to 2020
RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, located on the northern Oregon coast
January 9-February 9, 2021
Opening Reception: Astoria Art Walk, Saturday January 9, from 12-8:00 pm (to allow social distancing all day); I’ll be there from 5:00-8:00 pm.
If you read my last post, I shared about my upcoming show at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria and how my initial idea was the theme of waterlines, but somewhere along the way I realized it was no longer a theme I wanted to explore. Instead, I started thinking in bands and swaths of color, a design element I have been smitten with for years. My thoughts went to how I have always been attracted to color field art, so as I painted and worked on my boards, the idea of working in fields of color filled my consciousness. The words Emotional Alignments became the title of my show, and propelled me forward. I knew where I was going and I was excited to get into my studio every day; I had an enthusiasm I hadn’t had in a long time.
After getting all of my boards prepped, I kicked into full time painting, spending several hours a day in my studio adding layers of oil and cold wax. In my last post, I shared the process of how I prepare my boards with acrylic paint, plaster, and more acrylic paint, and now I’m showing and sharing the process of adding layers of oil paint mixed with cold wax.
The first order of business is to mix up cold wax with Galkyd (which helps speed the drying time), then mix oil paints with the wax mixture, making it the consistency of whipped butter (or shortening if you are old enough to remember that cooking staple).
I use the early layers to just get color down so I have something to respond to. I’ve been working on 20 pieces simultaneously, so drying space is at a premium, necessitating spreading out into our bathroom and the upstairs hallway.
Once I have one or two initial layers of oil and cold wax, often alternating between warm and cool colors so when I’m scratching through the wet paint, the earlier layer is revealed, it is time to begin thinking about a composition. I knew I would be focusing on bands of color, so I just started painting swaths, giving some thought to color, but not too much advance planning at this stage.
Eventually, I had another layer on the boards and it was time to begin making more informed choices to add variety within the swaths: warm against cool, texture against smooth, bright against dull, light against dark, busy against calm. I had the idea of using paint chips (from the hardware store) to play with color combinations.
I also gave a great deal of attention to the intersections between the bands of color, the interstices. I have long been fascinated with intersections: drawing into the layers to reveal earlier layers, what colors show through, adding lines of color with the edge of a squeegee, how to create bold interest, how to create quiet interest that invites a viewer to step closer to see the details.
And so it goes. Back and forth, adding, subtracting, standing back, scraping, excavating, laying down more paint. Mental and physical gymnastics.
Between painting sessions, is the inbetween, the drying time. I set up a fan and a heater to blow warm, dry air around my studio, a time for the paintings to rest, a time for me to rest. It all seems to help.
Paintings are being completed and I’m excited about them. They reflect how I have moved through the pandemic, politics, wildfires, and personal traumas this past year. Titling the pieces has been as therapeutic as painting them. I think I might just be okay.
In my next post, I’ll share the completed pieces. The show, Emotional Alignments, opens Saturday, January 9, 2021, at RiverSea Gallery as part of the Astoria monthly Art Walk.
Back in April, I submitted an application to participate in the annual Word & Image: Writers and Artists in Dialogue show at the Hoffman Center for the Arts, a lively art center located on the north Oregon coast in Manzanita. My application was accepted and 12 artists and 12 writers were randomly paired during a Zoom meeting in mid June. Names were drawn from a hat and I was paired with Evan Williams. We both have North Coast connections: Evan has had a family cabin at Neahkahnie for years and lives in Portland. I grew up visiting our family cabin at Sunset Beach and now have a a house in Astoria and split my time between Astoria and Salem. Here is a bit more about Evan: Evan Morgan Williams has published two books of short stories. A Neahkahnie regular since 1969, his stories are realistic fictions, often set along the Oregon Coast. He lives in Portland, where he teaches in a high-poverty middle school.
The project worked like this (stay with me, it can sound confusing): I submitted three images of art I had created in the past. Evan submitted three pieces of his writing. Evan received an email with images of my three paintings and I received an email with copies of his three writings. I was to create a new piece of work in response to one of his writings, and Evan was to write a new story or poem in response to one of my three pieces of art.
I chose Kimberly’s Hands, which Evan said I could share in this post:
After the love-making failed, Michael let Kimberly’s hands take his. Her pleading touch was dry as paper. It didn’t used to be this way. Michael remembered his hands in water, plunged into a mountain creek ahead of an advancing burn. He and his crew had been dropped in a mile ahead of the flames. It was hazard pay, and they earned it. The creek was going to be the line. Michael did not know where that water came from or where it was going. His hands in the water, cold, clear, smooth, lifting what he could to his sooty face. There were ferns and thimbleberry along the shore, and his hands ached, and the water was clear and silent as it slid over jewel-colored stones. That little stream had no idea what was coming over the ridge. The crew tapped a portable pump into that stream, a two-stroker, ugly noise, shaking like a jackhammer, and they hosed down the brush and trees, up and down the creek, until they ran out of petrol, but it wasn’t enough. The fire came. They ditched the pump and ran for their lives. Nothing they could do. Never found that sweet water again. It was probably dry now.
“Michael, come back. It’s all right. Look at me.”
“I know it’s all right.”
Once Kimberly’s hands had felt exactly how that water used to be. Now her hands felt how that water was now.
I chose to paint my response to the story written by Evan and I began by writing his story across the surface of my prepared panel.
The story was layered and nuanced, so I added layers of oil paint mixed with cold wax. For a while the painting looked like this.
It continued to morph and I frequently reread Kimberly’s Hands.
It finally reached that point where I knew it was completed.
“Under Perilous Conditions,” plaster, oil, and cold wax by Dayna J. Collins
My process statement in response to Kimberly’s Hands:
Water, cold, clear, smooth. Ahead of the flames. The water was clear and silent. The fire came. Her pleading touch. The visual language of “Kimberly’s Hands” resonated as I translated Evan’s words into a painting. My own response conjured the passage of time, memories, the devastation of fire, the rejuvenation of water, aging, and desire. I started my piece by writing Evan’s prose across the surface of my board, then began adding layers of paint, partially covering the words. Through the use of layers, texture, and color, I created a visceral and abstracted response.
During my painting and processing over the six weeks, Evan had chosen one of my paintings, The Strange Velvet Beautiful Sea, and in response wrote Diving In.
The engine ticks down. Just enough starlight she can see her reflection in the rear view mirror. She does her lipstick.
She looks out. A tent on the dark beach waits for her. A campfire, too, but a strong shape blocks the light.
She checks her lipstick again.
They met on the beach that afternoon. He taught her how to bodysurf. The water was frigid, but he said, “Keep moving,” and this made it all right. He taught her to lunge when the wave was good, to tuck her head and dive when the wave was bad. The shock of cold, dark, quiet, was exhilarating. She emerged into the light anew.
He said, “Diving into dark water, you accept the unknown. You meet it with your face. Knowing this changes nothing. Darkness reveals its secrets just the same.” She was surprised when he added, “You learn its cold indifference.”
She said she would come back in the evening. Freshen up at the motel. She told him, “I could be into you.”
The rear view mirror says perfect. She puts the lipstick in her purse along with the pepper spray and the Lady Smith. Five bullets. All her things are small. They take up all the space in her small world.
But a mirror’s reflection is an opposite. If you see confidence in the mirror, it means you are a coward and a fool. She re-checks her reflection, isn’t sure. She dives into that unknown.
“The Strange Velvet Beautiful Sea,” oil and cold wax by Dayna J. Collins
An image of my new art and the new piece of writing by Evan were due the end of July, and art work was then dropped off the end of September. Using the imagery and writings, a book was published showcasing all of the art and writing from the 12 artists and 12 writers. (It is a beautiful book and is available at the Hoffman Center for the Arts.)
Two broadsides were created, the first featured the art I created in response to Kimberly’s Hands, and the second broadside featured the story written by Evan in response to the art that I had submitted.
Fast forward to October when everything was revealed at the opening reception, which took place virtually because of you know what.
The reception was on a Friday night, and the exhibition opened on Saturday, October 3; we were able to visit the show on the following day. What a thrill to see the exhibit in person. The woman who was gallery sitting that afternoon said several people had expressed an interest in purchasing Under Perilous Conditions and someone had purchased my piece that afternoon.
In July, my Salem Art Group hosted a 31-day art challenge, inviting the community to join our group in doing something creative every day for a month and posting on Instagram. I joined the challenge and managed to create something for all 31 days. I wasn’t always on time with my work or my posts, but I completed the challenge. Some days I did a little painting in my journal, other days I painted on 12×12 wood panels. And a few times, I did scut work, like prepping a bunch of panels. Most days I wandered into my studio and did something, but this challenge insured that I would go in and at the very least, create a collage or a small painting in my visual journal.
In no particular order and not all of my posts, here is a sampling of what I did during July to participate in the Daily Art Challenge.
Frenzy might be an overstatement, but I have been spending more time in my studio and after a fairly long hiatus, I have returned to painting with oil and cold wax.
Since 2016, I have taught a four-day Abstracted Landscape class at Sitka for Art and Ecology on the Oregon Coast. Because of the pandemic, this year’s class, which was sold out and scheduled for August 21-24, was canceled (as were all classes at Sitka).
Somehow the idea of not teaching this year inspired me to jump back in to oil and cold wax after several months of painting with acrylics and working on a series of collages. It felt good to crack open the gallon of cold wax and whip up a satisfying mound of wax, begin choosing tubes of oil paint to mix, and dig out my R & F Pigment Sticks.
I had one deadline for a painting (so that was a BIG motivator to get into the studio and do some painting and I’ll share about that project when I can), but otherwise, I decided to pull out old boards that I had used for demos in my Sitka class last year. None of the pieces were completed, they just had fits and starts of paint and marks on them, all used to illustrate techniques and then set aside. It was nice to have something to respond to besides a plain, blank, board.
Technique demo board
I also revamped a few boards that had been completed paintings, but something was niggling at me and those pieces got a light sanding to rough up the surface, and then I started over. It was nice to erase an old painting, but know that there was that sense of history lurking below the surface.
the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over.
What has emerged during my extended painting sessions is the reoccurring theme of circles. I have always loved polka dots and circles and they have shown up in my work for years, but lately I have tipped over into obsession.
obsession
[/əbˈseSHən/]
noun
the domination of one’s thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.
I’m using circles to excess and eventually I’ll reign myself in. Or not. In the meantime, here are several pieces in various stages of completion. All are on cradled wood substrates and they all have either Venetian plaster or limestone clay (the fancy name for joint compound) as an under layer. Other than that, some of the paint is from an earlier completed piece, or is from a demo at Sitka. Almost all of these have circles somewhere as a layer – in the plaster, buried in the paint, added on top of the paint, or some of the paint removed using a stencil to reveal paint, the circles serving as a window into an earlier layer.
I was the featured artist at our recent quarterly Open Studios at the Mill, held on February 13. My show focused on a series of revamped and new Salvage Collages as well as some acrylic paintings done on book board covers, utilizing my materials in a new way. I worked on pieces feverishly right up until it was time to get the show hung.
Artist Statement about my Salvage Collages:
Dayna Collins has always loved old books. She hyperventilates at the sight of books which are stained, defaced, torn or marked up. She rips battered books apart, reclaiming their faded fragments, and creates collages using only materials she has excavated. Dayna’s mixed media pieces reflect the passage of time, repurposing the scraps that are worn and weathered, transforming the aged and tattered pieces into something unexpected and beautiful, celebrating their fragile decay.
My husband hung my show in two stages, and it turns out he has quite a knack for curating and hanging.
The end result was quite nice.
Some of the pieces in the show:
And some of the paintings on book boards:
Many thanks to those who stopped in to say hello, and to Luis Noriega for attending our Open Studios and interviewing some of our artists for his podcast: Down the Rabbit Hole DTRH Podcast
Head’s Up: Next opportunity to see my Salvage Collages will be at a Pop – Up in July in Astoria, Oregon!
I’m pleased to share that I currently have an exhibition of my Salvage Collages at Willamette University’s Hatfield Library. My show, Salvage Collage: A Sort of Magic, is on view through January 20, 2020. It is always a thrill to show at the library, where I used to work 20 years ago.
Leading up to my exhibition, I was feverishly creating new work and revamping some old pieces to give them new life.
On the day of hanging, I used book carts to get my boxes and suitcases to the second floor of the Hatfield Library.
Then I spread everything out and began the process of stacking books in the cases and auditioning where to put the assorted Salvage Collages.
After a couple of hours, my work was complete.
The public is welcome to visit the library (and my exhibit) during library hours.The best place to park is on State Street, where there is metered parking (Willamette is located right across the street from the State Capitol). While you are at the library, check out the Pacific Northwest Artists Archives, which is right next to the two cases where my exhibition is. There is also some great art on the first and second floors by regional artists.
