Ring, Ring: "Telephone Game" Comes to Pine Moon

"Spring Time Donkey," Joanne Orce, oil on canvas.

The artists at Pine Moon Fine Art are playing games this month. The June exhibit at the gallery, “Telephone Game,” is reminiscent of a classic game of Telephone, in which whispered words and phrases are passed from one person to the next. At Pine Moon, it’s artist-style.

Attila Feszt went first, creating a piece called “Crow by Crow West,” in his signature acrylic on canvas style with bold colors – this time, red and black. When he was finished, he showed the piece only to Abby Jensen who then created her own piece based on what she saw in his.

“The inspiration could come from anything in the piece,” Pine Moon artist Joanne Orce explains. “An element or a color or literally anything. Also, there were no titles – you were just presented with the piece of art and you had to get your idea off of it without knowing the title.”

Local glass artist Jennifer Baker was fourth in line. After viewing a piece by third-in-line Dedi Knox, she saw a scene in which two Aspen trees appear to go in opposing directions. “The thing that stuck out to me was that it looked like there was a path that could go two ways,” she says. “I thought of how life can be crazy sometimes and can take you in different directions and I created sort of a short story using lines following the idea of being lost, taking a road and getting back.”

Jennifer’s pieces turned into three framed 9x9 pieces. When she was done, she sent a picture to the next artist in line, Joanne Orce.

“I saw grass in Jen’s pieces so I ended up painting a donkey in long grass, using some of the colors that she used,” Joanne explains.

In viewing the two projects next to each other, the lines from Jennifer’s piece are reflected in the lines of the grass. Jill Leeson followed Joanne and the work continued down the line until all 13 artists had created their piece. It was a project that was over a year in the making.

Now, the works are hung – in order – at the gallery, representing a visual game of Telephone. Even in a variety of mediums – paper, oil, watercolor, jewelry, ceramic and photography were all used – it’s amusing to catch the ties from one piece to the next.

The artists will be talking about the show at the first Artist Talk event for the summer on Thursday, June 12 from 5-6 p.m and “Telephone Game” will be on display through June.