Collage 747 -- Konetz!

The End!

I'm going to take a leap here and try apply Tolstoy's thoughts to our project.

The Epilogue is all about his ideas about history, and  whether or not the individual has control. The individual vs. the collective. The last few paragraphs he talks about the laws of astronomy, and how people perceive the immobility of the earth and planets. Which was proven to be incorrect centuries ago. What is true about this project? Individual effort, or something else?

Something -- that is very hard to identify -- drove this project. We worked together, side-by-side, for over 2 years. A real labor of love. We each made our individual contributions, and yet there were larger forces at play. I have often thought of this project in anthropomorphic terms -- it indeed has had a life of it's own. Even though I started the project and have seen it through to it's conclusion -- the Moscow International Book Fair June 8-12, then onto Yasnaya Polyana, the epicenter of everything Tolstoy -- it is still a mystery in a way.

Even though we finished making the collages in February, it has been a pleasure to continue to blog each day. I feel so close to this project; it is hard to say "goodbye". I have learned so much in so many ways. About commitment, about creativity, but mostly about friendship.

This last collage is based on a birthday card that Team Tolstoy made for me last year when I turned 50 on May 28. It seemed like a fitting end, to include the work of all of us on the final piece.

Hats off, Team Tolstoy! What an incredible journey it's been.
My love to you all, always. -- Lola


Lola Baltzell
from page 751-752, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1214-1215

Collage 746

For months now I've been mulling over what would be a fitting final post for the War and Peace Project blog. The imminent departure of Lola and others for Yasnaya Polyana- where the full-scale exhibit will open in just a few days- is a prompt to get on with it!

Five contributors had a hand in this collage, which started out as a birthday greeting to Lola. Not one of our drop-dead best, but it has it all: five pairs of hands, using materials that spanned the project-old children's book imagery featured early on overlaid with weathered advertisements ripped from neighborhood lampposts which creeped in much later. The project really did get more "punk," as our New School reviewer dubbed it. Loved that.

But the important thing to express is what a GIFT this project has been. Lola set a gift in motion that has remained in motion, and so retained its gift spirit. I received it as a gift and others have too. For that I say thanks- first to Lola and to you all.

Lynn Waskelis
from page 749-750, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 121-1214

Collage 745

Here is the binding from the text, used on our last day in the studio. Chris Chou, a wonderful artist (and a former contributer), popped in to say hello to the group. I held up this piece and asked for her input.
"Keep working!" she replied.

There you go... - Adrienne


Adrienne Wetmore
from page 747-748, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1211-1212

Collage 744

Lucy Arrington
from page 745-746, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Voloknonsky translation page 1209-1210

Collage 743

Emma Rhodes
from page 743-744, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1208-1209

Collage 742

Otto Mayr
from page 741-742 of original text
collage, acrylic paint
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1206-1207

Collage 741

WAR 

I live in a city destroyed by war just fourteen years before I was born. I can still find damage left by bullets and bombs fired during that final siege in 1945. My father grew up in Nazi Germany and can tell stories of seeing the huge fleets of Allied bombers flying high overhead to targets in other parts of Germany, or seeking shelter when that target was the Ruhr mining town where his family lived. His war was uneventful compared to that of my wife's father, who was 15 when he and his family fled their home in Danzig in March 1945. They were among the last German civilians to get out of the city before it was taken by the Soviet Army. 

Yet despite such direct and close links to the biggest war in history, the idea of war seems to me unreal and remote. I have had the great fortune of living in a period of relative peace. The Cold War posed a theoretical threat of complete annihilation but did not interfere with our prosperity and safety as long as no one pushed the button. Our wars -- Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan -- seem small compared to the Great Wars and hardly touch us. 

Tolstoy was born sixteen years after Borodino and the burning of Moscow. Like us, he lived in a period of relative peace, dying just a few years before the outbreak of World War One. The wars that Russia engaged in during his lifetime were regional affairs beyond the vast country's borders, far from home and not directly threatening to home and family. Living in peacetime makes it is easy to forget how common War has been to the human experience. -- Otto

Otto Mayr
from page 739-740, volume 2 of original text
made 2/1/12
collage
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1205-1206

Collage 740

Lola Baltzell
from page 737-738, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1203-1205

Collage 739

How I wished I loved in my heart the art I could love in my mind. Big, bold, epic, symphonic. But I love the small, the miniature, the detailed, the complex: the tiny boundaried world that has its sources in handiwork. Handiwork, crisply bordered or patched with cut geometrical shapes and defined by stitching, was what I watched my maternal grandmother do- in the quilts for our beds, the quilt for my doll, the embroidered and crocheted runners on the buffet, the corners of the tablecloths, and the handkerchiefs that primly blinked from her pocketbook.

from "The Paper Garden," by Molly Peacock. pages 18-19

No denying there's been an element of a quilting bee to the War and Peace Project. Albeit long-distance and slow-motion...Would we ever dare "stitch" the collages together for display?

...and an element of the epic- 447 collages? Every page of War and Peace? Really?

Lynn Waskelis
from page 735-736, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1202-1203

Collage 738

Lucy Arrington
from page 733-734, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1200-1202

Collage 737

Adrienne Wetmore
from page 731-732, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1198-1200

Collage 736

Emma Rhodes
from page 729-730, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1197-1198

Collage 735

A friend has got me reading Molly Peacock's "The Paper Garden," the true story of Mary Delany- the original mixed-media collagist, and our sister. In 1772 Mary Delany began making collages at the age of 72. A span of 240 years between these images.

Lynn Waskelis

from page 727-728, volume 2 of original text
collage, oil crayon, graphite
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1195-1197

Collage 734

Adrienne Wetmore
from page 725-726, volume 2 of original text
collage, fabric, ink
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Voloskohsky translation page 1194-1195

Collage 733

Here is selvage from the dress my mother made to wear at my wedding. That was 1988. She, the fabric and I are all still here to see it put to use, a surprising one, but a USE. She saves those scraps for a reason. My grandmother taught us both well.

Lynn Waskelis
from page 723-724, volume 2 of original text
collage, fabric, graphite, ink
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1192-1194

Collage 732

Emma Rhodes
from page 721-722, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/3/12
Pevear/Volokhonksky translation page 1191-1192

Collage 731

On this page of the Epilogue we have Tolstoy philosophizing about what causes history. Is it the will of great kings and queens? Or is it the popular will of the masses that makes history happen? Is it divine or is it spontaneous uprising? Is it predetermined or is it chance? 

For quite some time I was collecting scrap pieces of paper and mementos, like cards from our recent NYC exhibit trip, and thinking, thinking, thinking how could I express my emotions about such a heavy page of Tolstoy? 

Here Tolstoy writes in circles about changing historical landscapes.. so I started thinking about nature, colors, swirling, and... then it hit me... GUM WRAPPERS! 

I would like to thank my artsy daughter, Natalie Carney Johnson, for this  perfectly inspired collage. She and her friends in Atlanta make elaborate collages themselves with the gum wrapper foil from Wrigley's 5 Gum. Each flavor has its own foil color -- and coincidentally, they all have stunning landscape hues -- blues, greens, golds, blacks. The foil simply peels right off the wax paper and even leaves a sticky residue so no glue needed -- perfect for collage!  I gave Natalie the page of Tolstoy’s text, and in 2 hours she gave me her vision of history rolling through time…all in gum wrappers.

Thank you Natalie Carney Johnson!

Thank you Wrigley's! And thank you Tolstoy!!  -- Christiane 

Natalie Carney Johnson

from page 719-720, volume 2 of original text

collage made 3/10/12

Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 2012-2013

Collage 730

"Belief has been destroyed, and therefore it is necessary to explain the meaning of power... if the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral qualities of the person who possesses it, then it is obvious that the source of this power lies outside this person... power is the sum total of the wills of the masses, transferred by express or tacit agreement to rules chosen by the masses." -- Leo Tolstoy

Trish Crapo
from page 717-718, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 2/24/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1188-1189

Collage 729

"... the wheels did not furnish the cause..."

This collage can be like "Where's Waldo?". Can you find the all the wheels? -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 715-716, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 1/20/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1186-1187

Collage 728

Epilogue, Part Two, Chapter III.

"A locomotive is moving. Someone asks, why does it move? A muzhik says: the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its wheels turn. A third asserts that the cause of the movement is the smoke blown away by the wind."

I used the cover of a Portuguese history book and an abstract image of a train locomotive (center, bottom). And a character inside a train car who looks a little like Sherlock Holmes -- let's say he is pondering the meaning of history! -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 713-714, volume 2 of original text
collage
made 1/20/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1184-1186

Collage 727

Tolstoy continues his rant about history.

"... modern history is like a deaf man, answering questions that no one has asked him."

Lola Baltzell
from page 709-710, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 1/13/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 1181-1183

Collage 726

In the examination of history:

To find the component forces equal to a composite or a resultant, it is necessary that the sum of the components equal the composite.

I love how the  colors connect us in the studio, each week creating a unique sum body of work. - Adrienne


Adrienne Wetmore
from page 709-710, volume 2 of original text
collage, fabric, twine
made 1/13/12
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation
page 1182-1183