Collage 129

Introducing Joan Ryan! Joan is a friend from East Boston, an artist in the studio building where we create this project. She is an amazing artist, a master of pastel, drawing and painting. She is an art professor at Lesley University in Cambridge. She and Chris Chou were in the building on the same Friday afternoon, and both agreed to make a piece or two for this collection. -- Lola

Here is her web site:

Joan Ryan Studio

Joanie writes:
So, I was very complimented when asked to be part of the War and Peace project. I was secretly hoping Lola would invite me to do a collage and finally she did. I have
seen the works progressing and all the collages are very engaging. My questions were about the choice of book,( I loved War and Peace, myself) and whether or not the collage related to the page it corresponded to in the book, and if any of the work related thematically to ideas of Tolstoy. When I did my collage I was thinking of
Russia as a place. The vastness of the land and the hard winters. It is funny how land/place can effect ones own idea of identity. Aside from vaguely thinking of that while working on my collage I was also thinking how nice it was to hang out with 2 good friends and enjoy the quietness of creativity with them.

I think keeping all the pages together as one body of work is what makes it compelling. The idea of no one owning their collage or the body of work is similar to how Tolstoy left his books, to the Russian people. No one person owned his work, which is a great idea for this project and supports his ideology.

Peace To All

Joan Ryan
from page 265-266 of original text
collage, acrylic paint
made 6/18/10