What can you do with lots of stuff? Create like crazy for five days!
That’s the inspiration behind MCLA Gallery 51’s latest exhibit, “Woodshed II: The Next Hundred Hours” in North Adams. (It’s a sequel to the first “Woodshed” two years ago.)
Some 40 artists took the idea of collage to inspired heights that range from video, to textile, to acrylic, to stuffed animals (REAL stuffed animals).
New gallery manager Ven Voisey said some of the artists “are using cast off stuff from our culture … and there’s a lot of it.”
The artists brought mostly their own materials – from little boxes to truckloads – to the Main Street gallery and its “annex” a couple of storefronts over. Then began a marathon of art making that began on a Friday and ended on Inaugaration Day with an artists’ reception.
Throughout that time, the galleries were open so visitors could watch the progress. Voisey, who also curated the show, added his own audio collage of sounds picked up during the artmaking process.
Local artist Daniel O’Connor, better known as Danny O and mastermind of the two “Woodsheds,” took the collage inspiration even further toward the concept of using old elements to create new. He and his buddies took some 50 old canvass paintings donated by Sanford & Kid and proceeded to repaint them – or embellish what was already there. Ominous flying saucers hovering over bucolic settings is a favorite theme.
“People start with nothing and end with something,” said Jonathon Secor, director of special programs at MCLA. “And you get this quality of work. It’s really amazing.”
Among the professional artists this time are three MCLA students whose work made the grade.
Visitors should flip through the artists’ statements available in a three-ring binder at the gallery to get a sense of what the creators were thinking.
Sean O’Brien of Freeport, Maine, spent hours ripping little bits of Saran Wrap to press between polarizing glass to create a delicately-hued image on a light box. “The colors don’t really exist,” he said, rather the material is a prism reflecting light along wavebands.
Like its ephemeral color, piece’s beauty is a matter of perspective, particularly once you read O’Brien’s statement about a loved one with cancer. “Blastoma” is the “horrifying image of a tumor spreading through the brain.”
Arts management student Craig Perras was taken with all of it. “It’s like an experiment in fun.”
“Woodshed” is on view at Gallery 51, 51 Main St., in North Adams through Feb. 22.
