Author: Anna Ivanovna

By Anna Ivanovna

In the Group 2 gallery, the shared theme “What is Left Behind” is turned toward family, books, and the fate of the planet. The collaborators return again and again to questions of legacy: who and what remains, and how we remember them.

Several collages circle around inherited objects. Jamie writes of her own contribution, “When I look around my home, I see pieces of my life that once belonged to loved ones… These objects are infused with memory.” Anne tests another angle on the same idea, choosing pins and a scrap of handkerchief that do not carry much feeling for her. She wonders what happens to things that are truly “left behind and not much appreciated for their memories.” In Jody’s additions to Marcie’s collage, multiple generations are present in photographs: a picture from childhood in front of a house designed by Marcie’s grandfather, a fashion illustration from Jody’s mother’s career, and a granddaughter at a park she no longer remembers. These family images seem to echo Jamie’s question: will the next generation keep these objects, or will their stories fade?

Books appear as another kind of heirloom. Anne, a self-described “lifelong nerd and retired professor,” builds her starter around old volumes whose “ornamental covers and engraved illustrations” now feel obsolete in a digital world. Leah adds a reading chair, marble bust, and hummingbirds pointing toward “How to Study Plants,” reflecting on research that younger readers “now do not report even being able to read one” book a year for pleasure. Her hummingbirds stand in for the imagination that might be “left behind” with the loss of deep reading.

At the same time, Leah and Marcie bring climate grief into the mix. Leah’s burning world and Marcie’s protective cocoon around the Earth extend the idea of legacy outward, to what our generation is leaving to others.

Group 2 is halfway through a complex meditation on what continues and what slips away.

Group 2 Gallery

GROUP 2
Marcie Simon (California), Jamie Buzil (Illinois), Jody Berns (Illinois), Anne Houde (Illinois), Leah Sosewitz (Illinois)

By Anna Ivanovna

In the Group 42 gallery, the themes and images introduced in the first half of the cycle feel rich and layered.

Daniel’s “Chaos intérieur” collage, with his father’s 19-year-old face and 93-year-old hands, sets a tone of personal history and vulnerability. Laura writes that adding to it was “a therapeutic experience,” and she responds to Daniel’s “chaos intérieur” by bringing in her own family’s estranged relationship. She says her additions “express an estranged relationship being experienced by one of my loved ones right now.” Daniel, in turn, sees “a dialogue of wounded souls” between Jan’s and Laura’s sections. Even without seeing the collage in person, we can imagine that central gaze intensifying as each new layer adds emotional weight.

Alongside this, Fred’s Native American theme moves steadily through the group. Daniel researches Nokota horses, elk, and eagles and builds a horse coat from tiny fragments, “gradually” constructing form from texture. Laura’s description of Fred’s collage as “a wonderful tribute to Native American culture,” “truly a journey through history and beyond into contemporary issues,” suggests that her own inks, paints, and “thin collage rays” are meant to connect figures rather than decorate them. These two strands—Daniel’s intimate family story and Fred’s broad historical theme—both invite careful, respectful handling.

Jan and Laura also stretch the project formally. Jan weaves cyanotypes and old photograms into an “in-camera collage” that honors Haudenosaunee weaving traditions along the Chemung River. Laura’s starter collage, with its unexpected whale, moves from land-based Three Sisters agriculture into a hybrid land–sea legend. Daniel calls this range of approaches an adventure designed to help him “step outside my comfort zone, learn to let go, and, above all, appreciate the work of others.”

Halfway around the circle, Group 42 seems to be learning how to hold both inner and outer histories—personal, political, and cultural—in the same evolving images.

Group 42 Gallery

Group 42
Booyakatopia (Netherlands), Daniel Guy (Canada), Jan Kather (New York), Fred H Athey (California), Laura Lubecki (Pennsylvania)

By Anna Ivanovna

In the Group 72 gallery, the collaborators are building a set of collages that feel playful yet considered, with plenty of room left for the unexpected.

Christine and Frank begin by ripping up an older acrylic painting and hot gluing the pieces into a new abstract structure. Christine writes that she would love it if this stayed “an abstract, texture driven piece” but admits it’s “out of my hands.” Sandy later receives their collage with “very blue painter’s tape,” recycled materials, and layered surfaces. She responds in kind, adding a charm, “mini-gears,” home-dried corn silks, and recycled wrinkled paper bag. Her description makes the piece sound almost tactile from a distance, an invitation to look closely and feel with the eyes.

Sandy’s own starter, “Found It! Wrinkles in Time,” grows out of a 1920s city directory from her western Pennsylvania hometown. Early photos show pages being arranged with matte medium on gesso board; a later image reveals the finished foundation, creased and rippling. When Ben posts “Wrinkle in time before and after,” his pair of images echo that title again, suggesting he is also thinking about folds and temporal shifts.

Sonja’s starter brings yet another texture language, with recycled cardboard, strong greens, and what Christine describes as a “nature driven aesthetic.” Christine removes an out-of-place building and clouds to deepen the green environment and give more room for the next hands.

Halfway around, Group 72 seems to be testing how far surfaces can be pushed—wrinkled, layered, cut apart, and reassembled—while still staying open to each other’s choices.

Group 72 Gallery

Group 72
Kaya Fehmi (California), Ben Hoz (California), Sonja Hinrichsen (California), Christine Hippeli & Frank Ferraiolo (Connecticut), SandyG (Pennsylvania)