Neither Lois Masor Beatty nor Maureen O’Connor Burgess expected to fall in love with collagraphy, a method of printmaking that involves applying collage materials onto a rigid surface, often yielding abstract and unexpected results. Burgess had spent 40 years in the exacting field of graphic design, and Beatty started her art career favoring more representational techniques. And yet collagraphs by both women are up at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction, a testament to art’s power to defy even the artists’ expectations.
For years, Beatty, who lives in West Lebanon, “just didn’t think (abstract work) deserved the same level of respect as more traditional forms,” she said during an interview at the studio on Monday. Models were a common fixture in the night classes she took to satisfy her creative itch during the years she worked as a secretary, cementing the idea that art should look like life.
The shift came when she took a hand paper-making class while living in Somerville, Mass. As she stood engulfed in her giant, splattered smock that went all the way down to her toes, she had an epiphany: “Colors were these globby, wonderful things to deal with,” she said. “I became addicted.”
As for Burgess, who lives in Montpelier, the freedom of collagraphy was a salve for the surgical precision of her long-time profession. Over the course of her four decades in graphic design, she experienced massive changes in the industry as it began favoring computer programs that, to her, seemed at odds with the creativity of design work. The messiness of making collagraphs was a kind of antidote to the exacting nature of her work.
“Graphic design is just so, so precise,” she said. Collagraphs, on the other hand, never come out of the press looking the way they do going in, so there’s little point wringing one’s hands over dimensions and proportions.
“I think this is a way to loosen up that type of thinking. … You think you have a plan, but there’s only so much planning that can go into it,” she said before adding with a chuckle, “My initial goal is not to be appalled when it comes out (of the press).”
Beatty echoed this sentiment. Because of the unpredictability of the collagraph, she said, “you can’t take it too seriously or else you’ll go crazy.” That element of the unknown is part of the fun for Beatty, who especially likes how each piece is, by virtue of all the hidden variables in the printmaking process, one-of-a-kind — a monoprint.
Much of their work in the Two Rivers show began in a recent workshop with Sarah Amos, an Australian-born master printmaker who now lives and works in Vermont. Beatty and Burgess recalled how Amos encouraged experimentation, even telling them to “go find the weirdest thing from Joanne Fabrics” and incorporate it into the printmaking process. This advice inspired Burgess to pick up some eye pins that caught her attention, and scatter them onto her printing surface to create reliefs.
This spirit of spontaneity is the connective thread between the two artists’ works, though each collection retains the artist’s distinctly personal style. Beatty’s pieces are at once playful and elegant, layering colors and lines into soft, dreamlike configurations. In her six-part Dancing series, loosely tangled strands of color weave in and out of the foreground. The strands wax and wane in thickness, producing a sense of languid, graceful movement, slowed perhaps, as if under water.
And in her four-part Drawn & Quartered series, she creates a visual archeology of the layers that have gone into the print by burying some shapes so deep in the background that they appear only as floating, pastel-colored marks, while letting darker, more intense shapes and hues loom large. This lends a three-dimensional feel to a flat surface that tells the story of its own creation, even as the tangled strands of color — a recurring feature in Beatty’s pieces — disrupt this sense of chronology.
Burgess’ works are more dramatic and somewhat more structured, with large shapes and bold colors that evoke distinct emotional states. Burgess has named her pieces not after what they look like, but after what they remind her of: In It’s Still Summer Somewhere, a grid-like design of grays and blacks calls to mind a cityscape viewed from above. It’s dark and a bit melancholy — except for a flowing stream of light that slices through the doldrums, bringing with it a burst of blue-green circles that seem to float up like bubbles. In After Curfew, a scattering of ghostly rectangles, embossed and outlined in ochre, adds a layer of depth and texture to a similar grid-like arrangement of industrial hues.
Though Burgess’ work is earthy where Beatty’s is ethereal, it’s fitting that both artists surprised themselves by gravitating toward collagraphy — and that they gravitated toward collagraphy because of its capacity to surprise.
“Things just come at you,” Beatty said. “You never know where you’re going to end up.”
Lois Masor Beatty and Maureen O’Connor Burgess show recent work at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction. On view through November.
Openings and Receptions
On Sunday afternoon, Claremont sculptor Ernest Montenegro will discuss his work at the Aidron Duckworth Art Museum in Meriden, where his exhibit “flatmensquared” is on view. The talk will start at 3, and a light reception will follow. The event is free and wheelchair-accessible.
Also up at Aidron Duckworth is “Pride of Plainfield,” a community exhibition celebrating the town’s agricultural richness through photographs, articles and audio, and “Everything Underlying: Work from the DNA and Evolve Series Massachusetts,” an exhibit of paintings and assemblages by Massachusetts artist Tracy Spadafora. All three shows end Oct. 29.
Patients, loved ones and staff at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center will read from works they’ve written on Tuesday night, starting at 6:30 in DHMC’s auditorium G on level 4. There will be a multimedia art show and reception beforehand, starting at 5:30 in the Chilcott Atrium on level 4. The event is free.
White River Gallery in South Royalton will hold an opening reception Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. for Chelsea builder and sculptor John F. Parker, who shows his wall sculptures in an exhibition that closes Dec. 31.
Ongoing
ArtisTree Gallery, South Pomfret. The annual fall exhibition, “Local Color,” which concentrates on the work of artists inspired by the New England landscape, runs through Saturday.
AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon. “Doors and Windows: Open and Closed,” a juried exhibition featuring 16 works by 16 New England artists. Rebecca Lawrence, former director of the New Hampshire State Arts Council, selected the works from 126 works submitted by 74 artists. The featured artists are: Charlet Davenport, Stephanie Gordon, Nira Granott Fox, Chris Groschner, Medora Herbert, William B. Hoyt, Carol Lake, Margaret Lampe Kannenstine, Travis Paige, Rebecca Rolke, Adele Sanborn, Helen Shulman, Stefania Urist, Janet Van Fleet, Jeffrey Wallace and Susan Wilson.
Also at AVA are works by Mary Hart, a Portland, Maine, artist who graduated from Dartmouth College and whose work has been exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art and the University of Maine Art Museum, shows her paintings in “Every So Often.” Another Portland artist, Vivien Russe, shows abstract work in “Lumen.”
Norwich artist Robyn Whitney Fairclough rounds out the AVA exhibitions with her “Recent Works,” featuring floral paintings that demonstrate her mastery of color. She will give a gallery talk on Thursday, Nov. 2 at 5:30 p.m.
All of the shows at AVA run through Nov. 10.
Barrette Center for the Arts, White River Junction. “Opening Doors to the Heart, Mind and Imagination,” a show of work by Elizabeth D’Amico and Rich Gombar, continues through Nov. 3.
BigTown Gallery, Rochester, Vt. “Land, Sea and Sky,” paintings by Peter Brooke, are on view at through Saturday; the wood sculptures of Hugh Townley are on view through Dec. 2.
Center for the Arts, New London. Three exhibitions are on view in micro-galleries throughout town: “Kearsarge and Beyond,” a collection of photographs by New London resident Larry Harper, are on view at the Lake Sunapee Bank in New London. Enfield artist Amy Fortier exhibits “Faux-Zaic Designs” in the micro-gallery at Whipple Hall. Maria Blanck, a part-time resident of New London, and Yvonne Shukovsky, of Springfield, N.H., show their work in the exhibition “Potpourri” in the lobby of the New London Inn. All through Oct. 28.
Chandler Gallery, Randolph. “From Green to Fall: Celebrating Creativity in Mental Health, Wellness and Recovery,” an exhibition of work by local artists concerned with issues of mental health, runs through Nov. 5.
Chelsea Public Library. “In The Garden,” a show of watercolor and mixed-media paintings by part-time Corinth resident Megan Murphy, runs through October.
Chew & Co. Design, Hanover. The water photographs of Rockland, Maine, resident Joan Wright are on view through November.
Cider Hill Gardens and Gallery, Windsor. “Converging Viewpoints,” a show of work by Gary Milek and Charlie Shurcliff, runs through Oct. 28. Also on view at the gallery and gardens are sculpture, painting and installations by Steven Proctor, Herb Ferris, Gary Haven Smith and the Mythmakers.
Converse Free Library, Lyme. “Landscapes: Lyme and Tuscany,” an exhibition of work by Greg Gorman in the Betty Grant Gallery, runs through Dec. 29. Gorman will donate 10 percent of his art sales to the Friends of Lyme Library.
Kilton Public Library, West Lebanon. East Randolph artist Marcia Hammond exhibits oil portraits through Jan. 31.
Library Arts Center, Newport. “Fall Into Quilts: an exhibit by the Soo-Nipi Quilters Guild” runs through Oct. 26.
Long River Gallery and Gifts, White River Junction. “The True Beauty of Clay,” a show of sculpture, pottery and jewelry by artist-in-residence Anna Hranovska Vincelette, runs through Oct. 31.
Norwich Public Library. An exhibition of photographs by Norwich resident Seth Goodwin, “Spaces and Places: Photographs from Near and Far,” is on view through Oct. 28.
Piermont Public Library. “Connecticut River Valley and Beyond: Oil Paintings and Photography by Nancy Griswold” is on display through Nov. 29.
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish. Canadian sculptor Cal Lane’s show “It Was Never Like This” runs through October.
Scavenger Gallery, White River Junction. The gallery exhibits shadow boxes, assemblages and short films by Thetford resident Richard Fedorchak in addition to the jewelry of Stacy Hopkins.
Tracy Library, New London. Father and daughter Alan Gepfert and Grace G. Cooper exhibit, respectively, their sculpture and landscape paintings through Nov. 3.
Tunbridge Public Library. An exhibition of “Landscapes from Around New England” by artist Pat Little continues through Friday.
Zollikofer Gallery, Hotel Coolidge, White River Junction. An exhibition of work by members of the Vermont Pastel Society continues through Dec. 27. There will be a reception for the artists on First Friday, Nov. 3, from 5 to 7 p.m.
EmmaJean Holley can be reached at ejholley@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.