Why: Ed was one of my teachers, a friend and a mentor. Ed suffered from mental illness, and five years ago took his own life. Videos of his dances are being screened to celebrate the work, and remember the man.

Event Details: Please join us for a screening of Ed Tyler’s works. For those of you who did not know Ed, he was our close friend, mentor, an amazingly talented choreographer, and a huge influence to so many of us and to the dance community in general. He touched so many people’s lives. It has been five years since Ed prematurely left us, and we thought what better way to honor his legacy and to celebrate and remember our dear friend than showcasing some videos of his amazing work. We hope to see you! Please feel free to extend this invitation to others that may be interested.

Dance Exchange
7117 Maple Avenue, Takoma Park, M
Saturday, December 10, 2011
7:30pm

- Lillian and Tzveta

Duck & Fish began as a series of sketches on note cards. I spread the note cards out on the ground so I could visualize and play with the narrative as a whole, and then wrote the story to accompany the images. When it came to revising the book, I went back to my illustrations (that I previously thought were finished) and edited and reworked them several times. The writing itself underwent numerous revisions as it was passed around a small circle of friends for edits and insight. Finally, after a great deal of bouncing back and forth, from editing text to seeing if it properly described my colorful collage illustrations, I finished the book.

The storytelling process for Duck & Fish has really influenced my current projects, which include a series called “The Adventures of Bosty”, and a collaborative collage animation. With The Adventures of Bosty I’m Photoshopping a collaged Boston terrier into photographs taken from various trips around the country and world, and I write about Bosty’s adventures next to the images. At the top of this article is a recent picture of Bosty  and the text that goes with this one is: “It was getting cold in DC – so Bosty boarded a plane and flew to Hawaii for the week. He sent plenty of pictures of all the fun he was having. Here he is enjoying the bright blue skies while posing next to a palm tree.”

Moving back and forth with drafting and revising illustrations for my first children’s book has influenced my art-making process. With my current series of collages I find myself revisiting the piece to refine and edit the narrative of each subject. Creating my own written story, for Duck & Fish, I was forced to think more about conveying a very specific storyline instead of just focusing on a general idea. Representational art is like a story in many ways. Scenes and sitters can convey different ideas for a work of art. Since I depict familiar scenes, animals, and a variety of sitters, viewers can look at a collage and think about what might be happening in a given image. It encourages them to tie the work to their own memories and experiences. I’m looking forward to continuing to develop new books, as well as fine art projects, and I feel like the two are reinforcing each other.

Megan Coyle is a Washington, DC area artist who makes collages using a technique she calls “painting with paper.” Her children’s book Duck & Fish is illustrated with paper collages and tells the story of a duck and fish that switch places for a day to explore new wondrous worlds of ocean and sky. She is currently working on a new body of work of animal collages for a solo exhibition next year in the Alexandria City Galleries.