Collage 46

Today Team Tolstoy was Lynn and I. I had an exhausting work week and welcomed the embrace of the studio more than ever.

Each week there seems to be a color theme, and today we introduced a new color, phthalo blue. Last week I was feeling like I needed something new -- it's interesting how the introduction of even one color element opens up a whole new range of possibilities.

To date we have completed 90 collages. Mark has photographed through about #75. Otto has #98. Emma has her second one outstanding but I can't remember her # -- maybe 76? Just for the record, Otto is not a slacker! It took 10 days for the materials to get to him and he just received them a few days ago. There is plenty of time for return mailing. We have already used a lot of old German text. We welcome new materials from our contributors. Melissa gave us a small stack of Russian ruble currency xeroxes which we have used several times since she introduced them.

We had one mishap today -- can I admit this? We somehow lost a page. No idea what happened to it. It vanished. So we will need to cheat a little and use leftovers from other pages. Artistic license, please! Lulu did a great job last week correlating the Russian art book with the English version. Somehow one of us screwed it up today. Alas.

If we can do on average 7 per week, this will take us 2 more years to complete. That is good news as it is so pleasurable, so delightful to work on this.

Lynn Waskelis
page 99-100 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 45

My tendency is to want to use A LOT of color and to fill the space entirely. I also usually like the edges filled in, not floating. Lynn and I spent some time guessing why her images float and why mine are anchored. It must make me uncomfortable somehow to have everything so uncertain. So this was an attempt to work more freely and a little differently -- just a few colors, lots of white and a torn, ragged edge. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
page 97-98 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 44

Lynn did this one. I had to check the back (where we note the page #, date made, artist and # is sequence) to see whether it was hers or mine.

I heard from our friend Otto Mayr in Berlin today. He received the page I mailed 10 days ago, in spite of the Iceland volcano. Can't to see what he mails back. I've asked him include some of his collage elements so we can use them as well. -- Lola







Lynn Waskelis
page 95-96 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 43

Lynn did this one.

Here is a passage that I love: "He lay directly under the icons; his two large, fat arms were freed of the coverlet and lay on top of it. In his right hand, which lay palm down, a wax candle had been placed between the thumb and the index finger, held in place by an old servant from behind the armchair." This is the deathbed of Count Bezukhov. Volume I, Part One, Chapter xxv. page 80. You can practically smell the incense. Such a visual description. I want to see the icons! -- Lola





Lynn Waskelis
page 93-94 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 42

I made this one on 3/26/10. There seems to be a pattern -- I remember making it at the end of a long [wonderful] studio day. It got a little whacky with the red and green color scheme. I remember sitting at our table, asking Lynn for help with this one.

Here is a comment from my friend Suzanne: "I LOVE the W&P blog site!! The collages are wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bet that someone or someplace will buy them all up!!!! Maybe a Russian Studies Program at a university??" It is exciting to wonder where this project will end up. -- Lola




Lola Baltzell
page 91-92 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 41

Art and the Text

I’ve been thinking about what I tried to express, and what Lola wrote in the blog a few entries ago based on a conversation we had while were working in the studio. I think it’s not that I prefer a literal translation of the text into a collage, it’s that I am searching for more of a connection between the text and the collage. Literal to me implies a picture of some sort, or more direct illustration of what’s on the page. And that’s not really what I’m after.

I have been wondering what the connection is between the collage and the text - I mean, we’re using W&P, pages with Tolstoy’s words on them, but….why? just because it’s there? Could we just as well be using any other text, Ladie’s Home Journal, People Magazine, a John Grisham novel, etc.?

What’s striking me as I read W&P, is that there’s so much there!

On a physical / literal level, there’s Tolstoy’s descriptions of the armies, the military , the battles,, all of which are so vivid and detailed, and which he researched so thoroughly; his descriptions of the high-society parlours among the Russian elite – I keep visualizing a PBS Jane Austen-esque adaptation when I read these…

There’s his commentary on human nature, human emotions, and human behavior – the way he’s able to describe how someone’s doing something, and it conveys an emotion and a point of view that is somehow universal and familiar, and resonates – whether it is a critique of someone’s behavior or attitude, or simply an observation.


Then there’s the language, repetitive as he wants to be, but it works – I guess what Tolstoy would say, words repeat themselves as much as they need to be repeated, no more, no less.

There’s the threads of ideas about God, action, love, free will – he keeps saying things like “and it could not have been any other way.”

There’s the frequent use of color descriptors, as Lynn pointed out (now I notice them all the time). Some of it conveys the picture, some conveys mood or tone.

I have no idea what this all means in relation to connecting the collage to the text – I don’t know what that would look like…

But I’m curious. Thoughts? --Lulu

Lucy Zahner Montgomery
page 89-90 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 40

An artist friend, Aimee, send me this comment recently:

"...and I have to say I'm in LOVE with your Collage Project. Those are some incredibly beautiful combinations of colors and textures you all have come up with. Makes me want to do some collage work."

How fun is that? -- Lola








Lola Baltzell
page 87-88 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 39

We are all reading the translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky. And of course we are all struck by different aspects. I notice unflattering descriptions of women. This one really got my attention: "with that expression with which women speak when they suppose they have said something witty and insulting". From page 74. This is in the context of a discussion between Prince Vasilly and his cousin Princess Katerina (Cathiche) regarding the will of Pierre's father, count Bezukhov. (Pierre was an illegitimate son.) I have to remind myself that this was written between 1863 and 1868. The Russian surfs were freed in 1861; I don't know the history of Russian women's rights. -- Lola

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It is a condescending description, but I read it differently. Katerina seems to care more about what she's going to (or not going to) inherit than she seems to care about her father who is in the next room dying...

Descriptions of Katerina in this scene include words like "dully and fixedly," dry and straight waist," "dry, thin hands," "unchanging, stern and stony expression," etc. Not exactly words that inspire a warm and fuzzy feeling about her.

I read the passage Lola mentions as specific to women like Katerina, not necessarily to all women, so it didn't bother me - I have heard some women speak with an expression as if what they say is witty and insulting...however, men are quite capable of that, too! It's not exactly an attractive quality in a human being. However...equal rights! --Lulu

Lola Baltzell
page 85-86 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 38

Love and Free Will?

I've got Pierre, Love and Free Will on the brain...

This is from p. 206-207: Pierre is being set up to marry Helene, the conniving Prince Vassily's vacuous daughter; he knows it would be a disaster, but at one point he

"saw and sensed all the loveliness of her body, which was merely covered by clothes."

It's all done for Pierre from there on -

"And at that moment Pierre felt that Hélène not only could, but must be his wife, that it could not be otherwise…he did not even know whether it would be good (he even felt that it was not good for some reason), but he knew that it would be…she already had power over him. And there were no longer any obstructions between them, except for the obstruction of his own will.

And what had happened to him? Nothing. He had simply realized that a woman he had known as a child, of whom he used to say distractedly, “Yes, good-looking,” when told that Hélène was a beauty –he had realized that this woman could belong to him. “But she’s stupid. I’ve said myself that she’s stupid,” he thought.

…terror came over him at the thought that he might already have bound himself in some way to go through with something which was obviously not good and which he ought not to do. But while he expressed this realization to himself, on the other side of his soul her image floated up in all its feminine beauty."

Poor Pierre. He's going to have to go through a dark night of the soul and figure out if there's really such a thing as free will to get out of this one.
---------------------

Although this passage is far ahead of the story matching the page from today's image, I like this playful, innocent image of the little boy getting dressed. Pierre seems to be in this innocent fog of believing in goodness (which isn't a bad thing) but he has to wake up or he's just getting tossed around by the will of others. He's also battling lust vs. what he knows deep inside is a bad decision. Whoa. C'mon...haven't we all been there at least once in our lives? ---Lulu

Lynn Waskelis
page 83-84 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 37

> I've been thinking about poor Pierre, a good heart, but going along, being pushed along by the society users around him...

This scene is from his stay at Prince Vassily's house, who is madly trying to set him up with Helene...

"He so constantly heard the words: 'with your extraordinary kindness', 'with your excellent heart', 'you yourself, Count, are so pure' or 'if he were as intelligent as you are' and so on, that he was sincerely beginning to believe in his extraordinary kindness and his extraordinary intelligence, the more so because, deep in his heart, it had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and very intelligent.

Even people who had formerly been wicked and obviously hostile became affectionate and loving with him.

It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should love him, it would have seemed so unnatural if someone did not love him, that he could not help believing in the sincerity of the people around him. Besides, he had not time to ask himself about the sincerity or insincerity of these people." (p.202)
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I love how Tolstoy's omniscient narrator takes us into Pierre's mind, and you want him to wake up...he seems tossed around, with no firm place to land right now.
Don't do it!!! Don't fall for Helene!

--Lulu

Lola Baltzell
page 81-82 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage, ink and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 36

This one was done by Melissa Kulig, a wonderful collage artist from Boston. We share studio space. She has become intrigued by the madness of Fridays when Team Tolstoy convenes and we invited her to contribute a piece. She found a 10 ruble note from 1905 at a flea market that she photocopied. She is aghast that we "re-purpose" so much original material.

I am trying to get re-engaged about reading the book and have made some half-hearted attempts recently to commit to it. I seem to be stuck in the drawing room during a boring dance party -- kind of like Natasha! -- Lola




Melissa Kulig
page 79-80 from original text
made 4/15/10 (?)
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 35

Here is one of Lulu's. Today Lulu, Lynn and I got together for a long walk. One of our main lines of conversation was this project. We are all obsessed with it. We later ran into Emma, who Lulu and I met for the first time. It is curious to know someone through their art before meeting face to face.

Lulu has "the book" for the rest of the week as she wants to identify the pages that hold particular meaning for her. She wants to work a little more literally. Which is fine with the rest of us. It is a big tent with lots of room for all of us.

We are tossing around the idea of approaching our alma mater college to see if they might be willing to show this -- maybe for our 30th college reunion!-- Lola

Lucy Zahner Montgomery
page 77-78 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 34

I remember doing this one at the end of a long studio session. I was tired but wanted to "finish" it. It is totally over-worked. We have our rules, though. Even when we aren't totally liking a piece, it stays in the larger body of work. There are definitely some stronger pieces, and some like this one!

Today Lucy and I worked together in the studio. She completed 2 collages. Hers won't be posted for a while yet as she did #77 and #85. She brought in another huge selection of ephemera for us to work with. One of my favorites is an old map of France. She found an old book from 1909 that was discarded from a library. Wonderful, funky stuff. -- Lola


Lola Baltzell
page 75-76 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 33

Here is an outlier, one of mine. Lynn contributed some wonderful colored tissue paper that is quite transparent. I'm not sure where the image came from. I have started to read War and Peace again after a hiatus of several weeks, and imagine this as a young Natasha. -- Lola











Lola Baltzell
page 73-74 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 32

This is one of Lynn's. Sometimes it's a little hard to tell whose is whose as we like to try to imitate each other, in an attempt to expand our own artistic vocabulary as well as create some visual continuity.

Today Team Tolstoy convened. We have completed 76 collages to date. My husband Mark is busy photographing #35-76. Lynn and I got there mid-morning, Lulu joined us early afternoon. Everytime we are together, something new and fresh happens. A while ago Lynn brought in some linoleum and cutting tools. For some reason, today I got inspired to make a lino-cut, a new technique for me. Lynn had done some in high school. I showed Lynn my handiwork. She liked what I had done, but then added a few other elements. I have never before used that kind of printing ink -- the piece came out kind of blotchy, but it was energizing to add a new element.

Emma delivered her piece to Lynn earlier this week, and I saw it a few days ago. We love what she has done, and want her back as a guest star! You will see her piece in about 3 weeks as I recall she did # 51. She is on tap to make another one. We may recruit her as a full team member! I will mail page 98 to Otto in Berlin. We are also very excited to see what he will send back.

Lynn Waskelis
page 71-72 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 31

We love our scrap box, where we keep all kinds of leftovers. Lulu had been working with this brown and gold origami paper. The paper itself was a gift to Lynn's husband who teaches preschool. The student was Japanese and gave him a large envelope of this wonderful paper. In any case, Lulu started to work with it and I literally picked up where she left off. I also used just a few words of the original Russian because I could actually read them! It's been 30 years since I've spoken or tried to read Russian so it's really fun to approach the language this way. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
page 69-70 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 30

Tonight I brought my nieces and nephew to the studio, a huge treat for them. They are 8, 6 and 4. "And a half" as they all have fall birthdays. Luke commented that because he had so many choices of materials, it made it difficult to decide what to use. We can relate! We have a seemingly endless supply of wonderful things. My German friend, Tilla, researched the German text we already cut into, and said that it was a series of German history books which are still in print. Phew! I had hoped it wasn't a rare book or antique. Luke also questioned if I was sure it was alright for him to pull pages out of books. I happen to be reading "Farenheit 451" so I wonder -- is it really such a good idea to destroy books? -- Lola


Lynn Waskelis
page 67-68 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 29

This one is mine, following up on Lulu's use of the gold and brown paper in the previous piece. It is so fun to riff off each other -- repeating colors, ways of working with the text and other sources. The more we do the more it looks like a cohesive whole.

Tonight I was at a meeting at a gallery in East Boston where I am a member, Atlantic Works. There is a slot open for a show in December. If the others agree, perhaps our Project can make it's debut there. At this rate we won't have the project completed by that time -- I estimate that we do about 10 pages maximum per week -- but I think that we could show it in stages. -- Lola


Lola Baltzell
page 65-66 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 28

This one was done by Lulu. Lulu introduced tweezers into the tool box. She has enormous patience as she cuts and lays out her materials so precisely. They way she work reminds me of some of the artists in the novel My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. -- Lola

Lucy Zahner Montgomery
page 63-64 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage, ink and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 27

At this point in the project I was able to read a full sentence for the first time. I was so excited that I used just that sentence which translates as, "Natasha", he said, "you know I love you but..." --Lola













Lola Baltzell
page 61-62 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 26

We have completed 60+ collages to date and they get more precious to us each week. This week Lynn took them home with her -- to keep them safe and to show her family what's been keeping her in East Boston all these weeks on Fridays. We are starting to think about how to mount them. Lynn took home a few different supports -- plywood, mastonite, etc. to try to figure out what will work best. We fully intend to finish all 800 of them and want to find a support that is not too heavy and thick, yet stable.

This is one of mine. A few weeks ago we had a warm, sunny day, so pink was the natural choice. --Lola


Lola Baltzell
page 59-60 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 25

Team Tolstoy consisted of just Lynn and I today. We got an earlier start than usual, and stayed until late afternoon. The weather does seem to affect the palette of the day. Today was cold and rainy, and gray seemed to be our color. My studio mate Melissa cleared some extra space so we could spread out, but we seem to prefer to work elbow to elbow. We didn't finish many today, maybe 5 or so [we both worked on separate non-Tolstoy projects in the morning].

Our mutual friend Otto in Berlin has agreed to contribute a piece. We all went to college together and studied Russian literature. Otto re-read War and Peace recently. I will mail him the page and it will be cool to see what he sends back.

Lola Baltzell
page 57-58 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 24

Am doing this blog entry two years-almost to the day- later... the project has been completed for a month. The studio is empty now. I look at this homely collage and wonder what will become of it.

Lynn Waskelis
page 55-56 from original text
made 3/19/10
collage, ink and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 23

This is Lulu's second piece. I love it -- it has a textural quality. It is mysterious, engaging.

Lynn's friend Emma, one of our contributors, has offered to reformat this blog with an index. I love how this is truly a collaboration with input from many corners. -- Lola

Lucy Zahner Montgomery and Lola Baltzell

from page 53-54 of original text

made 3/12/10

collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 22

Lynn took some images of the mystery German book which I forwarded to some German friends. Hopefully they can solve the mystery of that book. --Lola

Lola Baltzell

from page 51-52 of original text

made 3/12/10

collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 21

I had dinner tonight with a musician friend who was talking about the synergy of working with a band and how it's different than working as a solo artist. With Team Tolstoy, I am playing in a band! He was saying that when a collaboration works well, you individually go along for the ride as the energy of the group finds it's own way. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell

from page 49-50 of original text

made 3/12/10

collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 20

Lynn is getting in touch with her "inner librarian". She proposed that we cross reference each page that we do with a separate copy in English. So starting last Friday we take the time to try to figure out where we are in the Russian text. Lulu and I have been working on our Russian, and Lynn reads French really well. So it adds another level of intimacy with the text. Initially we were not intending to respond to the content of each page, but with this new element, we have the option to. Lynn has been noticing many references to animals, Lulu has been noticing references to color. I am just trying to keep the characters straight! -- Lola

Lynn Waskelis

from page 47-48 of original text

made 3/12/10

collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 19

Yesterday Lynn, Lulu and I spent the day together in the studio. We have finished about 56 collages at this point, although we are still waiting for Melissa, my studio mate, to finish #36. We have limited ourselves to just a few paint colors: chrome green, burnt sienna, transparent gold and cadmium red. We also use black and white. It is amazing how much you can do with a very limited palette. Yesterday Lynn got inspired to work in gray, so we used a lot of that. Lulu is also enamored with the luscious orange, the result of the transparent gold and cadmium red.

Working together on this project is interesting on many levels. A new one we discussed yesterday was how this allows us a new level of intimacy with each other. We all work in our unique ways which is a mirror of who we are in the rest of our lives. We've know each other for 30 years, and yet we are discovering each other in fresh ways.

Lola Baltzell

from page 45-46 of original text

made 3/12/10

collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 18

Here is Lulu's first piece. We just love her detail work! --Lola

Lucy Zahner Montgomery
page 43-44 of original text
made 3/12/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper

Collage 17

This one of mine. I was in India in late January. One of my desires was to find a used bookstore and buy a bunch of books -- any subject, any Indian language -- to use for collage. My friend Chitra steered me to a wonderful, musty shop in Bangalore just off MG Road, "Blossom". After some frustration, explaining what I was looking for, a string of young guys walked me up to the top floor where I found a motherlode of dictionaries, a text by Lenin, all kinds of treasures. This collage is the first that contains ephemera from that genre. It kind of fits, in a way. Lulu referenced a letter that Tolstoy had written to Ghandi on the subject of passive resistance.

Tomorrow is Team Tolstoy day in the studio. Can't wait! -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
page 41-42 of original text
made 3/12/10
collage and acrylic paint on paper