Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Collage 420

There goes the nobility.

How fascinating to use our art to describe his (Tolstoy's) art. As I think about my particular page, I rework the passage in my mind and find in it all the layered emotions and hidden meanings--just like all the different layers of my collage. -- Christiane

Christiane Carney Johnson
from page 95-96, Volume 2 of original text
collage, acrylic paint
made 4/6/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 675-677

Monday, May 30, 2011

Collage 419

Petya...together with the diminished but still quite large crowd, stood before the palace, looking through the palace windows while the sovereign dined, expecting something further, and equally envious both of the dignitaries who drove up to the entrance, to the sovereign's dinner, and of the palace footmen who served at the table and flitted past the windows. -- p. 675 in P/V

Lynn Waskelis
from page 93-94, Volume 2 of original text
collage
made 3/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 673-675

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Collage 418

I am so thrilled that Team Tolstoy will be showing at Yasnaya Polyana.

Congratulations!!!

I was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York yesterday looking at early collage work by Picasso. He used many of the materials that Team Tolstoy uses today - newspaper, wallpaper, music, paint, etc. I think he would be very impressed by the beautiful work of Team Tolstoy. -- Suzanne



Suzanne Goodhart
from page 91-92, Volume 2 of original text
collage, gold leaf
made May 2011
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 672-672

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Collage 417

Lucy Arrington
from page 89-90, Volume 2 of original text
collage, acrylic paint, ink
made 3/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 670-772

"Pierre found himself in confusion and irresolution."

He is painfully aware of his love for Natasha, and it's becoming apparent to him that Natasha is beginning to look at him with "more than affection."

He decides that he can no longer visit the Rostovs.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Collage 416

Yesterday my wife and I arrived at Lola and Mark's place "out west" for a short visit that coincides with Lola's birthday tomorrow. It's the first time we've seen each other in nine years. We had been thinking about driving in to Boston to visit the Team Tolstoy studios today, but the weather is too perfect to spend 5-plus hours battling holiday-weekend traffic in a car. So we will stay in the hills, but I do regret not getting the chance to see the studio and an idea of what it might be like to work more directly with Lola and the other members of Team Tolstoy.
A few moments ago, I described to Lola how I usually go about creating a collage. The first step is to reread the chapter that includes the page I will use for the collage. Then I locate the exact section that the Russian corresponds to so that I know (roughly) what the words mean or at least identify names and pieces of dialogue. This process provides the seed for an idea that leads to the collage.
Unfortunately, this process doesn't always work as quickly as I would like. That is when I am most acutely aware of what I am missing by working "alone" - physically removed from the rest of Team Tolstoy. -- Otto

Otto Mayr
from page 87-88, Volume 2 of original text
collage
made 5/3/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 668-670

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Collage 415

(The following comment contains a major SPOILER regarding War and Peace!)

A new chapter opens with Pierre visiting the Rostovs. His encounter with Natasha, who is finally emerging from the depression and shame of her attempt to elope with Kuragin, helps bring Pierre down to earth from his musings on numerology and History. Having read this book three times, I find this scene, and Natasha's words to Pierre, extremely moving because I know what Tolstoy has in mind for Natasha and Pierre. They will become man and wife and have numerous children. -- Otto

Otto Mayr
from page 85-86 of original text
collage
made May 2011
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 667-668

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Collage 414

Pierre (and Tolstoy) go off on a numerology tangent: At the end of this chapter, Pierre discovers that if individual letters are given certain values, the words "L'Empereur Napoleon" add up to 666. Then he tries out various permutations of his own name and eventually finds what he hopes to find: namely that "L'Russe Besuhov" also add up to 666. This is obviously deeply significant, because according to the Book of Revelations, 666 is the mark of the beast. Pierre concludes that it is his role to assassinate Napoleon.

In the Pevear/Volokhonsky edition, this passage appears on pages 665 and 666. This cannot be a coincidence, and I assume that this episode also occurred on page 666 of Tolstoy's original manuscript. Further, it seems telling that the communists who published the 2-volume edition we are working with held no truck with this kind of numerology and made a point of keeping the episode safely away from page 666.

Naturally, I couldn't resist playing with the symbolism in my collage. -- Otto

Otto Mayr
from page 83-84, Volume 2 of original text
collage
made May 2011
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 665-667

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Collage 413


We have an interesting -- and very good -- problem today. W have 2 collages with the same number! This happened once before. When we were hanging our first show in December 2010, lo and behold we had repeats as well. On the left we have Lynn's which features the spine of an old grammar book for French speakers to learn Spanish. Adrienne's is on the right.

An even worse problem is when we lose a page of the original text. We have a momentary panic about once every session. One of us -- usually me -- is paginating the original text to the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. Someone grabs one and doesn't write down which they took, or I stick one in a weird place, or lose the paper clip that bundles them together... any number of things happen almost every time we work together.

So collage 413 is made from page 81-82, Volume 2 of original text. Made on 3/10/11. And corresponds to page 664-665 of Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. (Do you really trust that's true?) -- Lola

Monday, May 23, 2011

Collage 412

Lucy Arrington
from page 79-80, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 3/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 662-664

In these pages the priest reads a lengthy special prayer for the salvation of Russia from foreign invasion. Not a prayer for peace, but a prayer that they might, "strike down our enemies and swiftly crush them under the feet of Thy faithful."

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Collage 411

Suffering, and with a sinking heart, as always in a crowd, Natasha walked in her violet dress with black lace as women know how to walk-- the more calmly and majestically, the more pained and ashamed she felt at heart. She knew she was pretty, and she was not mistaken, but that did not cause her joy as it used to.
--p. 661 in P/V

Lynn Waskelis
from page 77-78, Volume 2 of original text
collage
made 3/10/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 660-662

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Collage 410

"But the happy day came, and when Natasha, on that Sunday so memorable for her, in a white muslin dress, came home after communion, for the first time in many months she felt calm and not burdened by the life that lay ahead of her." -p. 659 in Pevear/Volokhonsky



Emma Rhodes
from page 75-76, Volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 659-660

Friday, May 20, 2011

Collage 409

Lucy Arrington
from page 73-74, Volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translatin page 657-659

Natasha is slowly recovering from her grief and shame. She is still convinced that there will never again be any happiness in her life, but she's regaining a sense of calm. She has banished joy and even the hope of joy, but almost in spite of herself, the bits of her life were beginning to come back together.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Collage 408

No matter how silly or stupid or vexing Natasha's behavior is throughout the book, I have a soft spot for her. In this passage, she is seriously ill, overcome by depression brought on by learning of Anatole's secret marriage. Her loved ones rush about, making sure the doctor's orders are fulfilled, and the doctors shook their heads and prescribed relief of all sorts contained in "not-so-harmful pills". I love how Tolstoy describes this scene, the doctors '[satisfying] that eternal human need for the hope of relief, the need for compassion
and action, which a human being experiences in a time of suffering... When a child hurts himself, he runs at once to his mother's arms... The doctors were of use to Natsha because they kissed and rubbed her "boo-boo" assuring her that it would go away at once' so long as she took her 'powders and pills in a pretty box, and if the sick girl made sure to take them with boiled water every two hours'.

I definitely feel maternal toward Natasha. -- Adrienne

Adrienne Wetmore
from page 71-72, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 656-657

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Collage 407

Well, it's time to find a Russian tutor! I got an email from Yasnaya Polyana yesterday. We are invited to visit in late August for 4 days during an international conference. Mr. Tolstoy will be there so it will be a good time to connect with him. October is also an option, but he travels a lot so it might be difficult to find another for-sure slot. So we are all scurrying around, trying to put together time and money to take a 10 day trip. My husband Mark calls Yasnaya Polyana "ground zero" because Leo himself was born there, wrote all his masterpieces and is buried there as well. So it will be quite a pilgrimage.

The other big news is that Otto is now in the US for a few weeks of vacation. He will spend next Friday with us in the studio. This is so exciting as until now, he has worked by himself in Berlin. It will be interesting to see what happens when 2 streams of water merge.

I have no idea what is written on this page in large letters. Christiane sent us a package of materials some months ago, and it's from that. It's always a risk to use foreign language if you don't know what it means -- it could be offensive! or political! or advertising tooth paste for all I know. So, time to find a tutor, indeed. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 69-70, Volume 2 original text
collage
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 654-656

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Collage 406

Lucy Arrington
from page 67-68, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink, acrylic paint
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 653-654

Not my favorite. Here again I was trying to be free as Adrienne with the use of black. I think I'll leave the black to her!

In this piece I wanted to convey the confusion Rostov felt when in the midst of battle, he makes a daring strike on the French dragoons, picks out the officer he will attack, then at the last minute, holds back as he sees his enemy: "expecting a new blow any second, he winced, glancing up at Rostov from beow with an expression of terror. His face, pale and mud-spattered, fair-haired, young, with a dimple on the chin and light blue eyes was not at all for the battlefield, not an enemy's face, but a most simple, homelike face.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Collage 405

"The sun had only just appeared in the clear space under a cloud when the wind died, as if not daring to ruin this lovely summer morning after the storm; the drops were still falling, vertically now, and all became still. The sun came out completely, appeared on the horizon, and vanished into the long, narrow cloud that stood above it. A few minutes later, the sun appeared still more brightly on the upper edge of the cloud, tearing it's edge. Everything lit up and glistened. And along with this light, as if in response to it, cannon fire rang out ahead." -p. 651 in Pevear/Volokhonsky




Emma Rhodes
from page 65-66, Volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 651-652

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Collage 404

We are waiting to hear back from Yasnaya Polyana regarding
when we can visit this, prior to our show next summer. The international coordinator, Elena, is checking with Mr. Tolstoy. He seems to want to meet us as much as we want to meet him. It looks like it may be in October.

Meanwhile, we continue to have a blast in the studio. Last Friday it was Lucy, Adrienne and I together.

Unfortunately I left my copy of War and Peace somewhere, so can't say what's happening in this scene. What I do recall is a lot of borrowing when I made this, mostly from Adrienne. We call her the queen of black. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 63-64 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 649-651

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Collage 403

Lucy Arrington
from page 61-62, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 648-649

An interlude of escape, fun and flirting as the men find shelter in a tavern before the violence and bloodshed they will face the next morning.

In this piece I'm experimenting with using black the way Adrienne does. Not sure I've succeeded, though. Check out her collages (for example, 397 or 345, to see what I mean.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Colage 402

Lucy Arrington
from page 59-60, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 646-648

On the eve of the first serious action there is a violent rain and thunderstorm. In this image I try to convey the sense of the soaking rain and mud that the men endured as they anticipate the battle to take place the next day.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Collage 401

Lots of news here from Team Tolstoy.

Yesterday morning I was able to speak with Elena, the international coordinator at Yasnaya Polyana. She will speak to her director about specifics, but it looks like some of us will travel to Russia this fall to spend some time at Yasnaya Polyana. To meet their staff (including the director, a direct descendent of Leo himself), get the feel for the place, and tour around the area. We will probably spend 3-4 days there and spend some time in Moscow and St. Petersberg as well. All very exciting.

I have also been in touch with Matt Kish who has agreed to do a collage for this project. We are thrilled about this as his project, "One Drawing for Every Page of Moby Dick", was the inspiration for this one. His project is being published as a book and is now available on Amazon. His collage won't appear for some months, but please watch for it! He will probably do around # 510 or so.

And one of our Boston-based contributors, Joan Ryan, is in Berlin on an artist residency program. She has spent some time with Team Tolstoy member Otto Mayr who lives in Berlin. Joan met an artist in Berlin from Copenhagen named Lars Hoeg. They were having drinks and he mentioned that his favorite novel is War and Peace. She told us about this project and he wants to do a collage for us as well. Until this point we have limited participants to good friends but with that kind of enthusiasm, Team Tolstoy goes international! -- Lola


Lola Baltzell
from page 57-58, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 644-646

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Collage 400

On these pages we have another of Tolstoy's philosophical musing...
A good commander not only does not need genius or any special qualities, but, on the contrary, he needs the absence of the best best and highest human qualities--love, poetry, tenderness, a searching philosophical doubt. He should be limited firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important... God forbid he should be a human being and come to love or pity someone, or start thinking about what is just and what isn't.

Lucy Arrington
from page 55-56, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 643-744

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Collage 399

Every time we hit another "century" mark (set of 100 collages), it gives me pause to think. The first time we hit 100, we hung them on the wall of our first studio, amazed by our accomplishment. That was late last summer. Now today we are posting #399. Last Friday it was just Lynn and in the studio. We were working away and I handed her another page. She turned to me and said, "do you realize that this is #500?". When complete, we will have made just over 750 collages. So that means we're 2/3 done. Rather than feel elated, felt a touch of emptiness.

I am reading a book entitled "Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life". As I read along, it is so clear that doing this project is my calling. I am so grateful to Team Tolstoy for their boundless energy, creativity, love and friendship. You all rock!-- Lola


Lola Baltzell
from page 53-54, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 641-643

Monday, May 9, 2011

Collage 398

This features a stamp from the former Soviet Union. Chris Carney Johnson, one of our contributors from Atlanta, sent us a sizable collection of them. some months ago. Much like the question of whether it is OK to re-purpose the text of War and Peace, we had the same question about re-purposing the stamps. They are a piece of history. So we didn't use them for a few weeks while we mulled over whether we should or not. So this is the first appearance of one of them.

The use of certain materials is like a time line -- I remember who contributed what materials to us and when. As Pablo Picasso said, "Painting is just another way of keeping a diary". --Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 53-54, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 641-643

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Collage 397

I am going to break with our usual attempt to match the artist with their words -- I will write for Adrienne. I really like one particular passage here. Hope you don't mind, Adrienne!

What I like about this passage is that it is completely politically incorrect. Back in Tolstoy's day, I guess you could make the following kinds of statements:

"A Frenchman is self-assured because he considers himself personally, in mind as well as body, irresistibly enchanting for men as well as women. An Englishman is self-assured on the grounds that he is a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore, as an Englishman, he always knows what he must do, and knows that everything he does as an Englishman is unquestionably good. An Italian is self-assured because he easily forgets himself and others. A Russian is self-assured precisely because he does not know anything and does not want to know anything, because he does not believe it possible to know anything fully. A German is self-assured worst of all, and most firmly of all, and most disgustingly of all, because he imagines that he knows the truth, science, which he has invented himself, but which for he is the absolute truth."

I wonder what he might have said about Americans? -- Lola

Adrienne Wetmore
from page 49-50, Volume 2 original text
collage, ink
made 2/25/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translatin page 638-639

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Collage 396

Over and over again you see this ambivalent attitude of the Russians and their relationship to the French. Even in the midst of preparing for battle, one of the Russian imperial adjutants, Chernyshov, is reading a French novel. In this scene, some Russian officers are also speaking in German. I used some old German text here. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 37-48, Volume 2 original text
collage, ink, acrylic paint
made 2/18/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 636-638

Friday, May 6, 2011

Collage 395

Some time ago Otto made a collage with burned edges. So this is a way to connect with him, even though he works in solitude in Berlin. We had made a lot of collages on this studio day. I was the last to leave the studio, and decided that it would be fun to burn some edges. Our studio neighbor is a famous photographer who specializes in disasters, mostly man-made. I borrowed matches from him as he also smokes a cigar once in a while. As I was burning away, I recalled an incident when I was a child. I and my brother set fire to a shed in the neighborhood while playing with matches. Take away message -- don't leave me alone in the studio! -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 45-46, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink, matches!!
made 2/18/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 635-636

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Collage 394

Now that we have an invitation to show this project at Ground Zero, i.e. Yasnaya Polyana, the Tolstoy Estate and Museum in Tula, Russia, my thoughts turn to logistics. This will warrant a "field trip", don't you think, to get the lay of the land? This will be a far cry from hanging a show in East Boston where we have easy access to hardware stores or whatever else we might need. We have a whole year to prepare, but it will go quickly. So at some point in the next months, a few of us will make our first pilgrimage to YP. How exciting! -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 43-44, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink, pigment
made 2/18/11
Pevear/
Volokhonsky translation page 634-635

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Collage 393

I am not sure who made this one. Either Lynn or I. It has her handwriting on the back -- just the collage number. But it looks like a collage I would have done. I tend to use the whole page of the original and position it the way it would be on a book so it's easily readable. I vaguely recall being drawn to this page of a thesaurus with the header "volition", but underneath it says, "ill-devised, -imagined, -judged... mis-guided; misconducted, foolish... being all thumbs". I also used a map that Otto had sent. It looks like Russian but it is Bulgarian. And camouflage green. War time. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell/Lynn Waskelis
from page 43-44 of original text
collage, acrylic paint
made 2/18/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 633-635

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Collage 392

Team Tolstoy just received notice that we are officially invited to exhibit The War and Peace Project in Russian next (2012) summer! We will install it in June and it will run through September. Our exhibit will coincide with the Tolstoy family reunion, so the director (great-grandson of Leo himself) would like the show up for the family to enjoy. This is just fabulous news to us -- and hopefully to others who will enjoy this body of work. And who are also inspired by the masterpiece of War and Peace. -- Lola

Lynn Waskelis
from page 39-40 of original text
collage, pigment, ink
made 2/18/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 630-632

Monday, May 2, 2011

Collage 391

The reappearance of the old prince, Andrei's father, suggested the use of this face fragment to me. It feels disproportionately large and a bit phantasmagoric- like I imagine he must seem to Princess Marya.

Lynn Waskelis
from page 37-38 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/18/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 628-730

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Collage 390

Regarding Prince Andrei and his sky:
"After his fiancée's betrayal, which struck him the more strongly the more he tried to conceal its effect on him from everyone, the conditions of life in which he had been happy became a burden for him, and still more of a burden were the freedom and independence that had once been so dear to him. He not only did not think those former thoughts that had once first come to him as he gazed at the sky on the field of Austerlitz, which he had liked to enlarge upon with Pierre, and which had filled his solitude in Bogucharovo and then in Switzerland and Rome; but he was even afraid to remember those thoughts that had opened boundless and bright horizons. He was concerned only with the most immediate, practical interests, unconnected with his former ones, which he grasped at the more eagerly the more closed to him the former ones were. As if that boundless, ever-receding vault of the sky that used to stand over him had suddenly turned into a low, oppressive vault, in which everything was clear and nothing was eternal or mysterious."


Lynn Waskelis
from page 35-36, Volume II of original text
collage, ink
made 2/18/11
page 627-628 Pevear/Volokhonsky translation