Confluence

I first heard of Confluence from Brigen Gresh at an opening she had of her work at a show called Lot 1433. At that opening she began talking about a collaboration among 4 women artists. Having tried to collaborate with an artist myself in the past and having failed miserably, I was intrigued by this idea of 4 artists all working on the same paintings. I arranged to meet these four artists at McRae Art Studios in Winter Park as they began to work on these huge paintings. The 4 artists are Brigen Gresh, Dina Mack, Anna McCambridge and Vicky Jones. It was a typical steamy Orlando afternoon and the industrial studio space did not have air conditioning, but that did not slow down these women. Anna immediately got to work mounting a drawing to the panel. Vicky had previously drawn in the feet and Anna used her judgment to balance the two works together. Brigen placed tape along the top edge of the panel and painted in a thin band of light blue reminiscent of a sky. Dina started painting in the corner of the panel a bold warm cascade of shapes with the rhythm and flow of jazz. Vicky is Anna’s mom and these two have a similar narrative, representational feeling to their work. Dina and Brigen both work more abstractly with gentle color harmonies and a delicate balance of shape and form.
It started to rain outside and things cooled down. A train rumbled by outside. Anna backed away from the panel and started to dance to the music playing on the radio. She pirouetted and leaped like a ballerina. When she had finished dancing and everyone had stopped laughing, she said something that really resonated with me. “Collaborating with other artists, when the work is really going well, feels just like being in love.”
Confluence will run from September 25th through November 1st at the Maitland Art Center. They will host a gallery walk on Sunday October 18th at 1PM.