STEP UP GALLERY News:
The International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction will present Visual Poetry and Color: a traveling exhibition of Collage Artists and Visual Poets from around the world, Aug. 14 to Sept. 16 in Step Up Gallery at Mesa Public Library.
The opening reception is 2-4 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 15 in the upper-level rotunda adjacent the gallery. All are welcome.
The artists represented in the collage exhibit are:
International
- Australia: Flora Georgiou; Belgium: Luc Fierens; Canada: David Bircham, Lisa Blond;
- France: Matthew Rose; Hungary: György Galantai, Julia Klaniczay; Ireland: Mary
- Wallace; Italy: Elena Marini, Angelo Ricciardi, Roberto Scala, Vittore Baroni, Ruggero
- Maggi, Berty Skuber; Japan: Ryosuke Cohen; Norway: Kjell Varvin; Russia: Alexander
- Limarev; Scotland: Rose Frain; Sweden: Lilian Nicholson; United Kingdom: Emily
- Marbach, Les Jones; and The Netherlands: Rod Summers
USA
Cathy Zigrossi, Ana Soha, Amye Wake, Abigail Meredith, Annie Kartsotis, Kaitlin Oesterreicher, Alex Mena, Chris Davis, Todd Franke, Bella Moore, Laurie Kornher, Kathy Elliot, Lanny Quarles, Eric Breish, Charlie White, Katerina Touchon, Branko Majmunovic, Peggy Shepherd, Peggy Olivier, Edith Torres, Jasmine Yarbrough, Kerrie More, Don Abell, Zach Touchon, Diane Blumin, Elizabeth Bogard, Liz King, Mili Suleman, Mark LoVecchio, Allison Anne, Ray Beldner, Melissa Kulig, Susan Reedy, Rosemary Rae, Kelly C. Berwager, Deanna Lampe, Jonathan Stangroom, Lilly Hope, Nich St. Jam, David C. Donovan, Ann Dettmer, Pratima Aravabhoomi, Beth McCoy, Joan Schulze, Marlene Weisman, Rebecca Stuckey, Laura Speer, Mary Baumgardner, James Wimberg, Mim Golub Scalin, Janice McDonald, Kathy Elliott, Annie Kartsotis, Terry Garrett, Jay Sylvester, Laura Noe, Betsy Arizu, Judith Jasinski, Christine Jelson West, Jennifer DeSantis, Heidi Markham, Peggy Shepherd, Vicki Daigneau, Selena Dixon, Carmen Kolz, Clive Knights & Terriann Walling, Laila Rezai, Touri Strick, Joey Zanotti, Sona Nast, Marsha Balian, Andrea Burgay, Jane Helslander, Marian Hoffman Ting, Allan Bealy, James Gallagher, and John Whitlock.
Additional works will be on view by local and regional artists produced in the workshop just prior to the opening reception.
Free Collage Workshop
- Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Aug.15 (the library’s doors open at 10 a.m.).
- Location: The upper level meeting room in Mesa Public Library, 2400 Central Ave.
- Reservations are necessary. Email Cecil at touchon@gmail.com and type “Workshop” in the subject line. There is a limit of 25 attendees.
Step Up Gallery is providing a free half-day collage workshop in which participants will discover the fun and creative possibilities of collage. No previous experience is necessary. Whether an artist or simply curious to try something new, everyone is welcome. The workshop will be led by renown collage artist, Cecil Touchon.
All workshop materials are furnished and participants will be guided through the process of creating their own original collage. Participants are also welcome to bring papers, photographs, magazines, or other collage materials to use or share.
At the end of the workshop, participants are invited to contribute one artwork for the exhibition. It will be installed in the exhibition opening later that day. Each contributed work will become part of the permanent archives of the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction and be included in future presentations of this ongoing exhibition.
Everyone is encourage to spend a creative afternoon at Step Up Gallery, meet fellow art enthusiasts, and become part of the museum’s growing collection and history.
About the Museum Archives
Started in the late 1990’s in the early days of the internet, The International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction is an ongoing art project by Cecil Touchon based in the Santa Fe/Albuquerque area.
Since that time, Touchon has created multiple art projects including artists from around the world and curated many large exhibitions and catalogs of which “Visual Poetry and Color” is the current ongoing project. The archive contains thousands of works given to the collection over the last nearly three decades by participating artists.
The Mission of the Museum
Among Ourselves: The Archive of Living Connection
Where traditional museums gather from the past, often from afar, the Collage Museum, an artist run project, gathers from the contemporary moment; from among ourselves. Artists contribute not because they are selected, but because they are in conversation with each other and with the archive. It is a communal project. The archives are currently only accessible online.
This is not a collection in the institutional sense. It is a correspondence field – an archive of relationships, personal contact, synchronicities and encounter. There is no acquisitions committee. No gate keepers. There is only the unfolding present and those who feel called to participate. In this model, gifting is a gesture of community. It is a record of a global network. The museum does not collect – it remembers. The collections archive is the community’s physical proof of life and record of that connection.
Cecil Touchon, the founding director, is a collage artist and painter represented in Santa Fe by Nuart Gallery on Canyon Road.
