Nice work. Want to trade?

Published 1:00 pm Saturday, November 19, 2005

What does a person do when they’ve hit a creative roadblock?

It’s almost art. Partial projects that are usually tucked away as an artist says in vain that it will be finished some other time.

That’s not the case for the Artists of South Whidbey.

“We were looking for a challenge for the club and we found it,” said Pat Brookes, Artists of South Whidbey president.

These artists decided that if you can’t finish a project yourself — why not trade it?

“We all knew we had unfinished work, so we figured why not each take a couple and trade,” Brookes said.

Their daring move turned into fantastic works of art that will be sold next weekend to benefit the club’s art scholarships for high school students.

But making them sale-worthy wasn’t always the intention.

The collaborative switch was just a wacky idea they came up with at one of their regular club meetings.

“We just wanted to have fun with it. We didn’t know how anything would turn out,” Kathy Hornsby said.

Participating artists in the collaborative project included Midge Billig, Ted Basrak, Alice Berkshire, Pat Brookes, Norma Boland, Marilyn Burchett, Laurie Davenport, Bernice Felton, Kathy Hornsby, Deon Matzen, Ginny O’ Neill, Sue Owen and Lois Thayer.

Among them, they were able to finish 21 paintings. A few that were tossed into the swap were never finished, or at least never seemed to return.

It was a blind trade and a leap of faith in many cases for the artists. Each person contributed works of which they had no problem letting go.

“We couldn’t be attached. You had to be willing to say goodbye to it forever,” Hornsby said.

All of the paintings were laid face down, so no one could tell what they were.

“You had some indication. If you were a watercolorist you looked for paper. You’d look for a canvas if you worked in anything else,” Brookes said.

Each person chose a couple, with a minimum of one. They were stuck with whatever they had grabbed. Some got a sweeter deal than others.

“There definitely were paintings that just took someone with a different eye looking at them to be able to put on the slightest finishing touches,” Hornsby said. “There were others that turned out completely different from their original version.”

The artists were given two months to complete the paintings.

Throughout the process they had no clue their experiment would be up for public display and sale, Brookes said.

“This was an opportunity for each of us to do something completely different from what we’re used to,” O’Neill said.

One of the paintings O’Neill received had been scrubbed out, and O’Neill worked in frustration to recreate the painting.

So she decided to start over also. First thing she did was put down a layer of house paint, but soon found her watercolor paint wouldn’t stick to it. After sanding it she was able to create a warmly hued image of a woman wearing a hair wrap.

“This isn’t even close to what I normally do, but it was fun,” O’Neill said.

“You may have unfinished work that you can do nothing with, but that someone else is inspired by,” she said. “For many of us it was all about changing perspective.”

For Pat Brookes the perspective was literal.

Two of the paintings she contributed were given simple fixes, and they became masterpieces.

“They were things that were so simple, but that did so much,” Brookes said. “I hadn’t even noticed their potential.”

Artists of South Whidbey regularly devotes 20 percent of sales from the club’s two annual art show and sales to arts scholarships.

All of the proceeds from the collaborative art pieces at next weekend’s show will benefit the scholarship fund in a much-needed way, according to Brookes.

“Last year we were able to give a $500 scholarship, but the year before it was only $300,” she said. “It’s getting harder and harder to make it happen.”

The Artists of South Whidbey currently has almost 40 members who meet for regular meetings at Brookhaven in Langley.

During the meetings there are often art demonstrations by club members and guest artists, as well as educational talks and artwork critiques.

“We want to be here to support artists of all experience levels,” Brookes said. “We want to keep people educated and inspired.”