Upstairs Art Gallery - Healdsburg, California
  • Home
  • Our Artists
    • Linda Barretta
    • Beverly Bird
    • Andrea Cleall
    • Marsha Connell
    • Susan Greer
    • Cynthia Jackson-Hein
    • Willow LaLand Yeilding
    • Karen Miller
    • Gail Morgan
    • Phyllis Rapp
    • Laura Roney
    • Donna Schaffer
    • Cynthia Sumner
    • Ron Sumner
    • Carolyn Wilson
  • Jewelry
    • Guest Jewelers
    • Jo Tobin-Charleston - beaded jewelry
  • Artisan Crafts
  • Featured Artist & Events
  • Blog
  • Visiting Healdsburg
  • Contact
  • Call for Artists
  • Home
  • Our Artists
    • Linda Barretta
    • Beverly Bird
    • Andrea Cleall
    • Marsha Connell
    • Susan Greer
    • Cynthia Jackson-Hein
    • Willow LaLand Yeilding
    • Karen Miller
    • Gail Morgan
    • Phyllis Rapp
    • Laura Roney
    • Donna Schaffer
    • Cynthia Sumner
    • Ron Sumner
    • Carolyn Wilson
  • Jewelry
    • Guest Jewelers
    • Jo Tobin-Charleston - beaded jewelry
  • Artisan Crafts
  • Featured Artist & Events
  • Blog
  • Visiting Healdsburg
  • Contact
  • Call for Artists
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

3/5/2019 0 Comments

Marsha Connell....Dream Vessels collage and A Murder of Crows

Picture
Picture
The March Featured Artist, Marsha Connell, presents works that articulate an artistic evolution initiated in collage and leading to the "Murder of Crows" still-life oil paintings. Connell had long been a painter and sculptor when her daughter, Reba, invited her to make a collage for shared communication while she was having her junior year abroad in Israel, a year that coincided with the first Gulf War. The collages became an unexpected healing process, fueled deeper by a dream of war preparations that suggested she bear witness. The collage "letters without words" to her daughter grew into a series of 150 "Dream Vessels" that speak with a visual vocabulary, like "Vanitas" paintings, symbolically merging awareness of death and the passage of time with the beauty of life. 
When words finally came, they emerged from the "dreaming in the day" dance practice of Authentic Movement. The resulting poems were often written in the presence of the collages and arose from a similar place of finding connections among discovered fragments. They accompany the Dream Vessels, but do not describe or explain them.


The arranging and rearranging of found images in collage making laid the groundwork for assembling and staging objects in the "Crow" series. "Spirit birds" and wings play a supporting role in the collages; birds star in the still-life series. "Through this work, I found a way to bring hope together with darkness. Assembling these found images was like taking the broken pieces of the world and putting them back together."


Both the collages and the crow paintings entice the viewer to look closer and follow a path of discovery. The paintings are also homages to other painters, such as "Thinking of Emily Carr." And there is humor, Connell confided, "The longer these crows were in my studio, the more trouble they got into!" evidenced by their activities and positions in the paintings.
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Blog


    Gallery News....

    Archives

    April 2017
    March 2017 
    January 2017

    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.