The End of (the) Winter (project)

My (nearly) 7 year 'Winter' chapter is finally (sort of) closed.  Done.  Over.  Fini.  

6+ years ago, in the late fall of 2009,

as I was in the process of making my annual 'Winter' greeting postcards

- Winter XVI -

I paused as I regarded a card table covered with maybe 48 of these cards 

(36 comprised the exhibit panel below),

and thought: 

Hmmm....  This looks really cool - all these repeating images - very graphic.  

This would make a nice piece of art all by itself.  

And thus the inception of the idea for the 'Winter' project.

I knew that several recipients of these postcards over the years had saved some or all of their cards, so I knew - if these card collectors loaned me back their cards - that I could put together a panel for each year of the postcards - size to be determined by how many cards I got back for each year.

So...

I first ran the idea by Emilie Alexander, who curates the Emile A. Gruppe Gallery* (very conveniently located just around the corner from where I live, in Jericho Center...)

Emilie was very enthusiastic about this idea of mine, and offered me a month-long solo exhibit, which she was able to schedule (appropriately) for December - two years from then, in 2011. 

So, then...

The next winter (2010)

- while holing up in my friend Nancee Mae's beautiful barn studio 

on a high hill in Middlesex -

along with making the Winter XVII postcards that I sent out

(which - for the first time ever - were sent out in envelopes, not as postcards!), 

I composed and sent out a cover letter proposal/plea for cards.**

And get 'em back, I did >>> About 300!

They started trickling in, in late winter and spring of 2011,

some of them with postmarks, (which I really liked)

or tack holes, tape, coffee/food/fly poop stains,

fading from sunlight.

All evidence of having been cherished enough to hold onto/keep in every-day family life. 

And by the end of summer, I was ready to start putting the panels together.

I then rented studio space close to home

(above the wonderfully aromatic Toscano's Cafe & Bistro, in Richmond)

And proceeded to assemble the 19 panels

- covering various-sized foam core boards w/ black fabric; getting glass cut;

securing frame clips and wires for hanging...

As per concept,

the size of each panel was determined by how many postcards I got back for each year.

So the next challenge was 

Positioning

I tried various alignments and configurations for each set of cards

in a couple of cases having to subtract one of the cards

  and sometimes adding extras of my own leftovers from some years where necessary

 

 for the math or aesthetic to work out.

For the early years, only a few cards came back

5 from this first year - 1991 - (above);

3 from Winter II - 1993

4 each for Winters III - 1994 - & IV - 1996

so the early panels were pretty small.  

Winter V - 1997 - was definitely the most popular of the panels.  :-)

Winter VI - 1998 - only had a few cards, but this arrangement 

along with Winter VII - 1999

- both of which I thought looked like Japanese obis -

were two of my favorites.

The panels then started to get larger with almost every successive year.

Winter VIII - 2000 (another popular one)***

Winter IX*** - 2001

Winter X - 2002

Crossroads**** - 2003

Winter XI - 2004 - (There's kitties in these cards.)  :-)

Winter XII - 2005

WinterXIII - 2006

Winter XIV - 2007

WinterXV - 2008

Winter XVI - 2009

WinterXVII - 2010 - There were 63 postcards in this LARGE (and heavy) panel.

And 'Meg's' panel - 2003:*****

And then I got ready to SHOW.

(see Addendum I below for exhibit pix)

Sue Higby - the visionary Director of Studio Place Arts (SPA) in Barre - convincingly cautioned me re: glass's often extreme breakability in temperature extremes, and we kept this well in mind in the several hangings and dismantlings that we handled the panels through in (mostly the dead of winter) the next few years.  And none broke en route!******  :-)  

One did break however... 

It's a funny thing about saying this project is over/done.  It is not ending without some strange 'hitches'.

Oddly, of all the panels, it was the Winter XVI panel, which had a little wall all to itself

up in the second floor SPA gallery.******

  

Sue told me that one day, it just fell off the wall.  And the glass broke.  (Luckily, not while SPA was open!)  So, the panel, with it's large pieces of broken glass still held in place by the frame clips - it had cracked in place, not shattered - went into it's transportation box (no need for padding), where it stayed, never to be re-glassed, for all the following years of the panels' exhibits.  

The odd truth here is that, of all the 19 panels that had come together in what I found to be very pleasing, graphic designs, I actually not been particularly fond of this one.  So I didn't mind leaving it out of the later shows.  How strange that the postcards that inspired the whole concept for this project would end up being my least favorite!

But WAIT!!

It gets odder:

I dismantled the 19 panels slowly, in spurts of determination to close the chapter, over the course of a couple of months in early 2015.  I got the glass off of all but the most unwieldy of the panels and stacked it on the used-for-things-just-like-this-but-no-longer-for-dining 'dining' room table. And there it settled, daily taunting me with the lingering irresolution.  Until one day in the middle of July, when I recruited Meg (the Meg of 'Meg's' singular panel fame) to help me finish the de-glassing, and haul the glass pieces - of sizes varying from 10" x 15", to 40" x 50" - to recycling. Phew.  Nice.  Another step closer to Done.  :-)

But, as it turned out - Not so nice.  :-/  

But I didn't realize that anything was amiss until early January of this year, when I started gathering everyone's cards, checking against my meticulous Excel matrix - created to log who/which card(s) when they first started to come to me, that late winter of 2011 - and I quickly realized that THE WINTER XVI POSTCARDS WERE ALL MISSING. ??????!!!!???

"Oh, that's right!", I immediately thought: I'd totally forgotten to deal with the broken-glassed mess of this neglected panel since it had been relegated to its box after the SPA show.  So, I went to fetch the box and remedy the situation.

HA!  Whaddya know!  NO BOX. Nope, nada.  Nowhere to be found.  HOW???!!!

Well, I think I figured out the only possible answer:  

When I sent Meg off to recycling w/the pieces of glass, we had carefully slid all the pieces into various boxes.  And the only thing I can think, is that, without looking carefully to see that there was anything other than a sheet of glass in the box (REALLY???!!), I'd slid more pieces of glass into this nice, conveniently large box, and off went Winter XVI to recycling!  Wow.  I am still just stunned that I could have been this careless.  But that's the only answer I've come up with.  I can fantasize that someone found the panel, re-glassed it, and has it hanging as an appreciated 'treasure' from the dump!  I would think that if this 'someone' had noticed that the cards were actually sent postcards that he/she might be curious and want to track someone (me or addressees) down and find out what the story is. ??  Though maybe not! Could be a 'Ya snooze, ya lose' type of thing. I may never know. It does make it rather impossible to actually close the chapter!

I didn't want the contributors of these Winter XVI postcards to be deprived of their cards,

and knowing that I still had most of the materials that I'd used to make the originals

I decided to remake the 36 missing cards from this panel.

So here's a little (only 7 steps) Production Steps 'movie' from the remake of Winter XVI:

https://youtu.be/7lbxgT6R6-M

Not exactly the same, and not the ones with my written greetings, but...*******

Just about everyone should have gotten their loaned (and 36 re-made) postcards back by now.  And I've just about finished writing up my notes here.  I still have to do some recycling of the foam core boards and black fabric, and I still have a few cards that I'm planning to hand deliver, so it's still not quite over...  

So now for some Thank Yous:

First of all - To all the very wonderful people in my life, who saved and then loaned me back all these postcards. (see Addendum IV below) The manifestation of this vision would never have been possible otherwise. It connected us, and sublimely extended our connection in a whole new way. 

To my husband, Mule (Vinnie 'Mule' Mulac): for the muscle - Mule helped haul the scary, heavy, fragile, glass-fronted panels to and fro for every exhibit - ALL of which were in the winter! Not to mention his enduring indulgence of many a Beth whim.  :-)  

To Barb Willis - for muscle, and enthusiasm, connections, and endless help with SO SO many things! 

To Peter Wolf - also for muscle, but also for his photos (see Addendum II below) as part of the Vermont Arts Council grant that I applied for and got (to have the accompanying collages that I made for the Winter shows).  And for being the best neighbor we have been so lucky to share a path through the woods with for over 20 years; not to mention our beloved doggie pals and great 'shroomin'.

To Joanne Vecchiola - again >> muscle.  :-)  AND @ 40 years of love, support, enthusiasm.

To Nancee Mae - for providing some nascent studio space. AND, also, @ 40 years of love, support, enthusiasm.

To Janet Van Fleet - whose mother helped me hang my very first solo collage show back in 1977 (in the Reed Rexford room @ Goddard College's Eliot D. Pratt library), and has been there with enthusiasm, love, encouragement and inspiration since I made my first ever 'cougel'.  

To Margaret Harmon - for 4 decades of Scrabble therapy.  And pretty much everything else you can think of through all these years.  

To Linda Mirabile - for almost as many decades of grace, inspiration and helping me connect.  

To Elaine Manghi - for a friendship that's always felt like 'home' these past 30+ years.  

To Valla Ree Slayton - for, yup, @ 4 decades too of friendship/driving me nuts, and for helping keep me hydrated thanks to my daily delight in/enjoyment of her 'musical' mug. 

And to Andy Mills - for so many years of Wasps' nests, found/recycled materials and some fabulously inspiring photos. She knows what my eyes like  so well.  :-)

To Jen Dole - for helping keep me loose - instigating and inspiring more fun, stories and sublime adventures than I ever could have imagined - including our 2010 '24 pages in 24 hours Comic Challenge'.  (Jen finished; I got 8 collaged pages done.)  

And to all of Robin's fledglings for also keeping me loose - you know who you are!  That we all came within each others' orbits right at the time this project was being born, was a most joy- and fun-filled alchemic happenstance. 

To Emilie & Stuart Alexander - Emilie for her ongoing enthusiasm and support, the offers of gallery space and her always so interesting and informed curation of all her shows; Stuart is a masterful show hanger.  This little gallery is a treasure.

And to Jessica Alexander - she's just so much fun; as well as a great neighbor and pretty swell Town Clerk.    

To Sue Higby - for offering the solo SPA show, enthusiasm and advice.  SPA is also a treasure.

To Jon and Lucie Fath at Toscano, for wanting to keep having my collages on their walls. And the delectable aroma ambiance of my studio space.  :-)

To Dr. Gil Theriault at Richmond Family Medicine - for the beautiful, gallery-like walls there that they offered.

To Sue Adams - for the invitation to show at our (Jericho's) beautiful Deborah Rawson Library.  And for her ridiculously inspiring stamina!

To all my Postcard of the Month (see Addendum V below) subscribers - for helping to make this 'spin-off' of the Winter postcards a joyous and challenging reality for 48 months now.  :-) And thanks here too, to Rick Winston for (amongst a gazillion other things) sparking the idea for this with his crostic puzzle subscription series of a few years ago - http://rickwinston.org/crostic-puzzles/.  :-)

And to the Vermont comedy scene - which pretty much didn't exist when I first started this project,******** and now has exploded into warranting Burlington's fabulous and first new comedy club - Vermont Comedy Club. ********  Wow did you keep me cheered and challenged!

So that's about it.

Done.  Over.

Fin.

sort of

Footnotes**********:

*http://www.emilegruppegallery.com/ Named for Emilie's well-known landscape artist father, several of whose works are displayed in the front room of the gallery.

**I sent a letter outlining the inspiration and goals of the show.  

The letter, in part: 

"In 1991, I made the first cards in the “Winter” series.  Maybe 40 or 50 of them that year.

 Some of you have received Winter cards since the beginning.  Some just recently.  A few, sporadically...

 And some of you have been collecting these cards.

 Last year, during the production process I had an inspiration, which I am in the process of acting on, and which completely relies on your participation....

...I am asking you to send me however many Winter cards you may have in your collection  in the SASE that I've enclosed along with this plea (I know you all have at least ONE, this one).  By late winter, 2011, when you put away all your holiday stuff and before this fades from your mind... All your Winter cards that you send to me for this project WILL be returned to you!

Thank you thank you thank you!  In advance.  For helping a vision manifest!

(some of you also received the fluke card of the Winter series, which was not titled “Winter” at all, but “Crossroads”(2003-4).  This card is considered part the project.)"  

***These cards' designs are ones that I have borrowed a few times for larger collages

These next three were collaged on  2' x 3' boards

Winter Hills I, 2002

Those 'mountains are Wasps' nest 'paper'.

Winter Hills II, 2013

detail

Winter Hills III, 2013

detail

And, similarly, this very large - 5' x 7' - wall-hanging that I made for my mother's new apartment in 2012:

detail

****Thus named as 2003 was a big year for us: Mule retired after 30 years at IBM; we got married (after having lived together for 10 years); and I was shortly to turn 50.

I made the central round collage

just for this panel.

*****This postcard was a prototype for Crossroads, and was never sent out as one of the annual postcards. However, I had sent one of these to my friend Barb's daughter, Meg (also my friend), and so, with the couple of other cards of this design that I'd made, I made 'Meg's' panel.  :-)

******Unlike some of the plastic frame clips I'd used on most of the panels.  :-/  I don't know if it was temp extremes (so unlikely), or just brittle plastic, but a couple of the critical gripper ends of the plastic arms did break.  Happily, I had re-enforced all the larger panels' glass gripping with small - de-winged - black butterfly clips, so I was able to rescue and re-frame clip before any glass mishap.  I suspect it was a brittle plastic clip that broke and caused the Winter XVI panel to slide down the wall.

*******One Winter XVI card that was contributed actually survived my unintended purge

- it had been used in the 'sampler' panel

(at top of blog) - a card from every year.

*******I did send notes of abject apology to all 36 contributors - along with the newly minted XVI redux - whose original postcards mysteriously (?? or just carelessly??) disappeared in the final dismantling process.  :-/

********I did a comedy set in Burlington on the same night that the first Winter show opened - Sunday, December 4th, 2011.  You can imagine it took me a few days to come down from that day.  :-)

*********http://vermontcomedyclub.com/about/  

Where Mule and I have a drink named for us:

**********I think I'll do away w/ footnotes in future blogs.  These require way too much ridiculous scrolling...

_____________

Addendum I: The Winter Exhibits

Emile A. Gruppe Gallery - December, 2011

 

Toscano Cafe & Bistro - January - March, 2012 and November - January, 2013  

http://toscanocafe.com/

Studio Place Arts - February, 2013

pahttp://www.studioplacearts.com/

Richmond Family Medicine - January - April, 2014

http://richmondfamilymedicine.org/

Deborah Rawson Library - December, 2014

http://www.drml.org/

Addendum II: VCA grant photos

Photos of my collages by Peter Wolf:  http://peterwolfphotographics.com/index.htm

Thanks to a 2011 grant from the Vermont Arts Council.

Stiletto Superstitions, 2010

Oh Deer, 2011

Sanded Time, 2011

Queen of, 2010

Untitled, 2011

Dragon at the Gate, 2011

Tinal Pool, 2011

Sailing Through the A-Air, 2011

Untitled, 2011

Winter Woods, 1978

Addendum III: Other collages that accompanied the Winter shows

Blue Pods, 2010

Red Pods, 2010

 Oh, The East, 2010

Revolution, 1977

Resolution, 1977

November, 2013

Copper Snow, 2011

 Winter Woods II, 2011

Winter Woods III, 2012

 March Postcard of the Month, 2012

  Oh Deer II, 2013

Addendum IV: Winter Postcard Contributors

Emilie & Stuart Alexander; Jessica  Alexander; Susan Alexander & Kirk Lord; ; Gordon Baker; Joan & Walter Barndt; Bob & Mary-Dana Bentley; Gary & Ruth Blodgett; David Boedy; Paula Burkholder; Ron Burns; Thomas & Ann Busby; Dan & Kathy Couillard; Roland & Cindy Campagna *; Pam Cummings & George Rice; Debbie Dattilio; Jen Dole; Paula Dowen; Dunkling & Penney; Stacey Ladd; Erin Farrell; Robin Fawcett; Ward & Nancy Fitch; Joyce & Ted Flanagan; Wendy Gibson; Steve & Alora Goodkind; Anne & Bob Goudreau; Leslie Grove & Allan Viges; Marianne & John Hammond; Margaret Harmon; Cynthia & Louis Haviland; Connie & Dick Hayes; Rory Hayes; Eric Herrmann; Terry & Andrea Hooks; Jericho Center Library; Dean & Judy Jones *; Al & Cindy King; Penny Klein; Laughing Bear; Susi Letourneau; Marcia & Jake Levison; Karen Lorenz; Nancee Mae; Susannah Magee & Scott McGrath; Brian Martin; Elaine & Paul Manghi; Kate Reininger  & Jerome Mendocino; Bob & Deborah Messing; Sue & Wally Mick; Andrea Mills; Linda Mirabile; Pat Myette; Grace Nelson; Junko & Bill Newman; Sue & Gene O’Neill; Erika & Tom Reynolds; Jaquelyn Reike; Maddie Ruth; Neale Schuman; Kasha Samuelson; Patty Shortsleeves; Elizabeth & Peter Skinner-Sloan; Valla Ree Slayton; SmartWood; Pete & Andrea Sparhawk; Yves Thellend; Leroy & Sue Turner; Janet Van Fleet; Joanne Vecchiola; Barb & Justin Willis*; Rick Winston & Andrea Serota; Peter Wolf

*contributed nearly complete sets!

Addendum V: Postcards of the Month

I launched this subscription project the day that the Winter exhibit first debuted - December 4, 2011.  Every month, each subscriber gets an individually collaged postcard 

from a set of 21 postcards of the same design:

The first postcards that I made/sent out were February's, 2012:

(I only made 10 of this first month's cards)

To see all 48 months (so far) of postcards:

http://bbarncat.wix.com/beth-barndt-#!postcards-of-the-month/c2o1 

!!! Addendum VI: Bonus Puzzle !!!

I've been thinking about this crazy British intelligence agency's Christmas card puzzler all week: http://www.itv.com/news/2016-02-04/winners-of-gchq-christmas-card-challenge- revealed/.  And so I thought a puzzle might be just the note I want this chapter (sort of) to close on.

So...

Can you pick out the 4 postcards in this sampler panel

which did not have a(nother) panel in the Winter show??

Send me your correct answers and I'll send you a postcard.  :-)