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.

I was interested in starting the composition from that place of quiet – with lack of expectation or preconceived idea of where we were going. When I began meeting with my company members (musicians and dancers) after the four month break (because of the surgery) we talked about silence/sound and stillness/motion.

Of course the musicians had thought a great deal about silence so they had a lot to say right of the bat. We looked at the writing of John Cage:

“Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of a chaos or to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.”

I felt this rule of thumb from Cage was a very good beginning for our new collaboration. Dancer Ken Manheimer suggested an improvisation in which the dancers moved to the sound inherent in silence and that was how we began rehearsing. I was determined to stick with letting the dance flow from what was happening in the moment and not try to “pre-conceive and pre arrange.” I follow the observations of scientist Michael S. Gazzaniga who wrote, “You’re just trying whatever it is you’re trying; you don’t know what’s going to happen, and then whoosh! —the thing pours right out there and generates the next questions, questions you never would have thought of before.”

At one point the dancers were doing something and the musicians started to pack up their instruments to leave and whispered together upstage of the dancers as they left. I loved the whispering, knowing it said something about sound and silence in an unexpected way, and we’ve kept “whispering groups” as a part of the choreography. There are sections of ideas about sound/silence, movement/stillness.

Since my surgery, I’ve been able to move more and more freely. It has been a wonderful feeling after years of increasing physical limitation. I can plie, jog, move quickly and even jump a little. Several people have assumed that I would perform again but I’ve not been driven to perform in recent years; I’m much more a director of dancers. I love to see the moving body. Can’t get enough of it. It’s an addiction. The most satisfying experiences I’ve had as a performer have been doing solos of someone else’s choreography, someone who can coach me to look good. The last solo I performed was Andy Torres’ “sparrow”. The great part of being in Andy’s work was to just follow his direction and trust him. It’s a marvelous feeling for someone who is usually the director. I try to bring my dancer’s sensibility to my choreography.

I hope you’ll come enjoy the first performances of this piece next weekend at Woolly Mammoth Theater as part of the Jane Franklin Company’s 24-Hour Dance Project.

Nancy Havlik has directed and choreographed for the past 25 years. She formed Dance Performance Group (a non profit 501c3 corporation) in 1989 as a vehicle to explore her own choreographic ideas with a small group of dancers and musicians. Through the Company her choreography has been performed extensively in the Washington, DC area at venues including Dance Place, Joy of Motion, Montgomery College, Jewish Community Center, Joe’s Movement Emporium, Mt. Vernon College and the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Her work has been shown in New York City at Joyce Soho, WAX and the Construction Company and in in Eastern Europe. (Czech Republic and Slovakia). She has directed site work performances all over the Washington, DC area in places as varied as C& O Canal, the Building Museum, Barnes and Noble Bookstore, Josephine Butler Center and the Torpedo Factory Arts Center. She participated in the Capital Fringe Festival for 3 years and recently has presented performances at Flashpoint Mead Theatre and at Woolly Mammoth Melton Rehearsal Hall. She has received grants from Maryland State Arts Council, the Montgomery County Arts Council and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Nancy teaches creative movement and intergenerational workshops for older adults through Arts for the Aging (AFTA). Her AFTA program “Moving Art” has received a 2011 Met Life grant to present a series of workshops for older adults in collaboration with Donna McKay combing visual art and creative movement. Nancy also directs Quicksilver, an improvisational performance company of dancers over 60 years of age under the auspices of AFTA.

Image with dark background of Ken Manheimer and Micah Trapp credit Roman Sehling.
Image with light background of multiple dancers credit Nancy Havlik.

When on tour with China Pig back in 1995, I remember looking out the window and I saw a field of fireflies. It was pretty beautiful, but what was so memorable, was being able to get a sense of the depth of the field. Some of the fireflies were closer than others and I got a sense of a chunk of space. In a way Sun Boxes is a sonic version of that field of fireflies. Sun Boxes is a solar powered sound installation. It’s comprised of twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. Inside each Sun Box is a PC board that has a recorded guitar note loaded and programmed to play continuously in a loop. These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord. Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time.

I played in a lot of bands and have spent a lot of time playing on stage. Although it was all great, I really wanted to make something people could feel like they were part of physically. There is no stage with Sun Boxes, once you see it or hear you’re in it, you decide how far in to go. One of my favorite details about Sun Boxes is to be surrounded by the piece.

The piece creates space; it’s an environment for one to enter and exit. The footprint this environment occupies is similar to that of a city. A metropolis. It’s a burst of technology in the middle of nature. Unlike most cities I have been to, it does not just take over the space. Rather Sun Boxes interfaces with the environment and collaborates with nature. It is the perfect combination of technology and nature that create art, an environment, and a metropolis.

There are no batteries involved, so Sun Boxes are reliant on the sun. When the sun sets the music stops and doesn’t start until the sun rises. The piece changes as the length of the day changes. Since the amount of sunlight varies from day to day so does the composition of Sun Boxes. Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers, and surround themselves with the piece. Certain speakers will be closer and, therefore, louder so the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array. Allowing the audience to move around the piece will create a unique experience for everyone. Participants are encouraged to wander through the speakers, which will alter the composition as they move. Given the option two people will take different paths through the array and hear the composition differently. Sun Boxes is not just one composition, but, many. Sun Boxes is a system that really interacts with its environment.

We are all reliant on the sun. I think it is refreshing to be reminded of this. I live on the South Shore of Boston in a town called Hingham. I live with a wife and two cats. We are one mile from the ocean. Our lives have filled up with technology. But we still need the sun and so does Sun Boxes. Karlheinze Stockhausen once said “using Short-wave radios in pieces was like improvising with the world.” Similarly The Sun Boxes are collaborating with the planet and it’s relation to the sun.

So far Sun Boxes has been In Nevada, Massachusetts, Indiana, Connecticut, Ohio, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. More importantly, Sun Boxes has been in the desert, on a frozen pond, grassy plains, a parking lot, the beach, in the snow and on a mountain. I have an informal goal to bring Sun Boxes to every state, and a more formal goal to seek out different locations.

Craig Colorusso sometimes makes stuff you can hear, and sometimes makes stuff you can see. You can visit a website for Sun Boxes here.

This piece is the almost serendipitous product of circumstances. At the time, I was doing a lot of drawing from the model. One day, I decided that my model should wear some animal paper masks; a series of nudes with animal masks was born. I did drawings, monotypes, and etchings based on these. The whole series was called “ Chronicles” and “ Garden of Earthly Delights Revisited” in honor of Hieronymous Bosch and his amazing fantastic creatures who inhabit a world where good and evil is interchangeable.

I trained with printmakers in my native Argentina as well as The Hague, Paris and the U.S. and use both the wide range of traditional printmaking techniques, from etching to lithograph, collagraph and chine colle, to experimental digital and video work. I believe that my Argentine and European background permeates my work; I aim to combine a sensuous line with bold and symbolic imagery, bringing the light and dark side of life together.

As with many of my prints, I used a combination of techniques to make Moonlit Traveler, in this case, etching and aquatint. In etching, a drawing is made with a sharp etching needle on a metal plate that has been previously covered with an acid-resistant coating. The plate is then submerged in acid, which bites through the drawn image but leaves the remainder of the treated surface untouched. After it is washed, the plate is ready to be inked and printed. Aquatint is a method that allows for larger surfaces of the plate to be “bitten” by exposing the plate to acid through layers of resin particles. (These explanations may begin to suggest to you why printmakers are so often seduced by technique.)

When the plate is ready, I applied the colors in stages. I used black etching ink for the line drawing and the aquatinted areas. I wiped the ink away in all but the lines and areas I wanted to be black. Then with a roller previously coated with blue and yellow etching ink I carefully rolled over the whole plate. I then placed a damp sheet of paper on top of the plate and ran it through the press, transferring the image onto the paper, and voilá, a print is born!

Thank you to the artist for making this print available to Bourgeon contributors. To acquire the work, click here.

Helga Thomson was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and studied there with German artist W. Dohme and printmakers Pompeyo and Eduardo Audivert. In Europe, she continued printmaking for brief periods in The Hague (Royal School of Art) and Paris (Atelier E. Caporaso and Jean Lodge). In the United States, Helga attended Ann Zahn’s Printmaking Workshop in Bethesda, Maryland, as well as Montgomery College, Maryland (with Z. Sikora), and the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC (with Gene Frederick and W. Christenberry, and digital art with Marise Riddell and Marte Newcomb). Helga has exhibited in international juried, group and solo shows. Her works are included in private and public collections (such as the Library of Congress) in the United States, Argentina, Europe and Central Asia. Helga has received national and regional awards in the United States. Helga is a member of the Maryland Printmakers, American Print Alliance, The Print Center of Philadelphia, Washington Project for the Arts/Corcoran, Arlington Arts Center, Pyramid Atlantic and the Central Asia Cultural Exchange. To see more, visit the artist’s website.

Edited by Ellyn Weiss

My work is still informed by my undergraduate studies and my experiences as a community organizer, now reinforced by the performance art of the 70’s (particularly feminist artists Suzanne Lacy and Eleanor Antin.)  As an artist and activist, through my works on paper, my installations, and artist books, I explore the power of the female figure and voice to express aspects of identity, while affirming the connections between art and society.

Until ten years ago, I worked primarily in community and commissioned public art, displaying life-sized woodcut rubbings of individuals and groups in locations relevant to the subjects. Now, continuing to embrace Method Acting’s belief in the constant dynamism of one’s inner and outer life, I draw to express through body language and clothing what each of my female subjects has brought to a moment in time. Wetting and fitting handmade paper to the subject, I create life-sized, softly cast 3-D drawings that references the figure without disclosing identity. Attached to lighted silhouette backgrounds, these shaped clothing pieces, with audio accompaniments, are intended as mirrors into one’s self and as conveyors of our shared humanity.

The first two installations of the series were Where I Live and What Matters.  Where I Live referred simultaneously to the site of the exhibition, to the location of each person’s identity, and to the source of my own creative exploration. What Matters continued my exploration of creative voice in both personal and political contexts by incorporating audio for the first time. These series allow me to continue to combine my love of drawing with my passionate interest in issues of identity. They also allow me to integrate lessons from community organizing, allowing me to engage larger social questions by hosting salons and evenings of conversation in my home studio as part of the work’s display.

Perfect Girls, the next installation in the series, opens in April 2011 and continues the use of my own self–reflection as the catalyst for creating work within a larger cultural context. This time, I will consider the “perfect girl” as a paradigm of our society. Drawings of my own coming of age in the 1950s and those of a 16 year old girl whom I have drawn at ages 5, 8, 13, and 16 (Naomi) will be displayed with audio collected from “Conversation Dinners” I hosted, and from Naomi herself, who has kept an audio journal.

Continental Drift will complete the series by considering identity through the cultures of other countries and the drifting influence between these cultures and the United States.  I began work on this project by traveling to Brazil in January 2010, where I photographed details from sidewalks, toys, products, netting, foliage, clothing and detritus.  I will travel to China and to Ghana to collect visual textures from those continents and these particular countries whose people have immigrated in large numbers to the US. These images will influence large color pencil drawings inspired by each country’s textures, and will allow me to work with women who have emigrated here.  Continental Drift is scheduled for exhibition at American University Museum at the Katzen Center in late 2012 or early 2013.

Looking back, I realize that the threads that launched me from adolescence – community organizing, theatre, visual arts and feminism have stayed as my constants.  Looking forward, I welcome their continued impact on my artistic growth and creative evolution.  And I realize I keep a pretty clean house.

Judy Byron studied theatre at Ithaca College and art at the Corcoran School of Art and Design. Her work on paper has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Her permanent public works hang at sites including the School of Social Work in the Tate Turner Kuralt Building at UNC Chapel Hill, Service Employees International Union and the Urban Institute.

Byron’s solo exhibitions include “Artists + Communities” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She has participated in many group exhibitions, such as “Picturing Politics”, “Art Against AIDS”, and  “Sweet Sixteen”. Byron’s work is part of the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth Sackler Center Feminist Artist Base. Collections include the Corcoran Museum, the NMWA, the Library of Congress, Rutgers University, the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Columbia and Absolut Vodka. She is included in 100 DC Artists edited by Lenny Campello(Schiffer June 2011).

Byron founded CAMP, an Artist Mentorship Program for the Corcoran Museum of Art, which was honored as a national model by the NEA and the President’s Commission on Arts and Humanities. She will complete her clothing series with “Perfect Girls” followed by “Continental Drift”.

Edited by Ellyn Weiss

Last winter, when DC was buried under several feet of snow, I decided to finally make a move into online art sales, opening up a shop on Makers Market, a juried online marketplace with a scientific bent.  The cell pieces were instantly my most popular, so I’ve been making more and more cell images.  I’ve been showing my work, mainly at art festivals around DC, for about 10 years.  Selling online connected me to a whole new audience and provided a creative shot in the arm. A bunch of biologists bought my work, and some of them suggested new subjects, like bacteria or blood cells.  One buyer pointed me toward “brainbows” – a series of images of mouse brain cells dyed in bright colors.  I loved them, and the images inspired me to begin painting brain cells.

I was talking about this new work with an artist friend, Sean Hennessey, who mentioned that he was having a show of his work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and suggested that my cell paintings would be a good fit. The curator at NIH agreed, so I started to conceptualize this show. I decided that a whole show of mitosis paintings would be a little boring, and I wanted the exhibit to have a stronger theme.

I got to thinking about how activity at the cellular level underlies major upheavals in our lives, like falling in love, giving birth and dying.  I decided to divide my paintings into two groups – love and death.  It’s a kind of ridiculously grandiose theme, but I’m a lover of opera and Russian literature, and heck, go big or go home, right?

I learned a whole lot of anatomy and biology while painting these pictures.  I looked up microscopic photographs in books and on the web and did many practice paintings, trying to get the balance right between accuracy and artistry.  The “love” paintings focus on the cells that are involved in attraction and desire – the skin, eyes, and ears, the brain and the circulatory system.  I’m very proud of my blood vessels, especially my abdominal aorta.  (That’s not technically a cell, but ok, too bad.)

For the “death” paintings, I depicted three microscopic killers – bacteria, viruses and cancer.  The cancer piece really hit home, because I lost both my parents to pancreatic cancer over the last decade, and I had never really approached it in my art before.  And I included two mitosis paintings, because cell division underlies the whole process of life and death.

I’m really happy with the work I’ve put together for this exhibit, and I feel like it’s opened new doors for me creatively. The exhibit opens January 14^th and will be up through March 5, 2011 at the NIH Clinical Center West Gallery (10 Center Drive, Bethesda MD 20892.) For more info about getting to NIH, see: http://www.nih.gov/about/visitor/index.htm

Michele Banks is a self-taught artist based in Washington, DC.   She stayed in school for 20 years, picking up degrees in non-art-related subjects from GW and Harvard.  Michele then set out for Europe, spending five years as a management consultant in the UK and Russia.  After getting married, moving to Bermuda, and having a baby, she came back to DC and started to paint.  Michele has been showing her work locally since 2001 at galleries and festivals in the DC area.  She has served on the steering committee and the board of Artomatic, and her work is in the DC government’s Wilson Building Collection and the permanent collection of Children’s National Medical Center.  Michele lives and paints in an apartment in DC that she shares with her husband, daughter and cat. She sells her work online at artologica.etsy.com.  You can follow her on Twitter @Artologica.