Collaborative Print Portfolio

"THE CREATION PORTFOLIO"

“Now vanish before the holy beams the gloomy dismal shades of dark:
the first of days appears. Disorder yields to fair the place.”
(librettist, Franz Josef Hadyn’s THE CREATION)

	creation 3

During 2003-04, a major collaborative project took place in the new studios of Pyramid Atlantic, Silver Spring, Maryland. “Discoveries Through Reading as Process, Art as Content “ a visual literacy program, featured the artist collective Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival from New York. Rollins was invited to the interactive program with area students and educators. The result is THE CREATION, a collaborative print portfolio and unique artworks that will be shown at various museums across the country starting at the Kreeger Museum, Washington DC and Pyramid Atlantic in April, 2005.

The theme of the print portfolio was drawn from Franz Josef Haydn’s oratorio, THE CREATION. While absorbing the music, the group made drawings and prints and contemplated the beginning of the universe, moving from the void to the primal and momentous appearance of light and ensuing emergence of heaven, earth, celestial bodies, land, sea, plants and animals. They worked under Rollin’s direction and with Pyramid Atlantic staff, Helen Frederick, Director; Pepe Coronado, master printer; Mary Ashton, master papermaker, curators Andrea Pollan and Milena Kalinovska, along with their teachers to collaboratively create masterful silkscreen monoprints.

George Mason college students also were participants during the process. Maureen Tucker, one of the students, remarked: “ 20th century artists in various ways have attempted to realize the concept of gesamtkunstwerk, a term Richard Wagner used to describe his work for the stage in which individual arts contribute under the direction of one creative mind. Using the studios as its setting, THE CREATION Project synthesized the written, aural, and visual arts to express the idea of the genesis of art -- how it is created, viewed, and appreciated. Working collaboratively with students, artists, educators, curators and others, the group experience provided a profound appreciation for how even the smallest idea, when germinated in a nurturing environment, becomes significant.”

At a time when the globe is being assaulted by destruction in many forms, the theme of the creation is timely, hopeful and cathartic. The prints marry luminosity, poetry and lyrically expressive abstract works, rich in black and white tonalities and movement. Each work embodies one of the seven days of creation.

Now the print portfolio THE CREATION is ready for purchase.

Details: Seven water-based silkscreens with chine colle’, 22” x 15”
Seven watermarked custom-made papers
Cover Page Interpretation and Colophon folio
Clamshell box with gold stamped title THE CREATION

Edition: 25 with 5 Artist Proofs
Purchase Price: $7,500
Pre-subscription Price (first five in the edition): $6,000

For more information on this special collaborative project,please click here.