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By Brianna Wray
The Times 

Artful Duo Mix Media

Two local artists collaborate to create a one-of-a-kind show.

 

March 28, 2019

Brianna Wray

Artist Martha Mason can't help but make adjustments to her art pieces, even after their on display.

WAITSBURG-Martha Mason and Anne Haley have come together to share an assortment of artworks ranging from letterpress prints and monotypes to paintings and drawings. These works are on display now through April at Ten Ton Coffee on Main Street.

"The theme of the show is how different we are," says Mason," we've been friends for years, but we're polar opposites."

"Anne and I met in my design class. She's an amazing woman and a very bright lady who's talented in the fiber arts, knows design theory, and she has the soul of a printmaker."

Both artists have a unique relationship with structure and form. Haley's pieces showcase an affinity for her agricultural surroundings paired with the familiar shapes of letterforms. These are juxtaposed against Mason's loose, colorful compositions each with their elements layered, erased and pieced together to form a palimpsest of still life compositions.


Structure manifests as contour drawings for Mason. "Drawing is the language of arts. Color is emotions, but the real structure, for me, is drawing." True to her influences, Mason finds it hard to call a piece finished. Even since Still Life Study Triptych was hung at Ten Ton on March 11, Mason has made changes.

"I'm always about change. I constantly change things. I could go home and paint the whole thing blue tomorrow," says Mason, who is all about amusement and pentimento in artwork.

A pentimento is an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed their mind as to the composition during the process of painting. "Let there be a breath or an echo of something that was there," says Mason.


When the mood lifts, it's time to call it quits. "Sometimes I find myself smiling. Ah, I'm smiling, I say, I must like this. It must be done."

Haley's work takes the formality of the letterpress process which is steeped in printing tradition and makes it a whimsical take on the place where urban and rural meet.

Haley knows her way around a word or two having built a successful thirty-plus year career as a librarian. A word is nothing without the letters that make it up which, themselves, are works of art. So, it is a natural progression of letterforms and storytelling that has led Haley to this point of visual custodianship through letterpress prints.

Haley's Memories of Earth prints are adorned with bits of old handwritten letters that, alongside monotype prints, layer printmaking techniques in a way that compliment Mason's collage style.


Anne Haley holds a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland and has studied at the Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton.

Mason studied art at UCLA with Diebenkorn and de Kooning as influences. There, she earned a BFA in painting in 1970 and then went on to earn an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois in Urbana in 1975.

Brianna Wray

Walla XVIII by Ann Haley

Mason has taught art at the University of Illinois, University of Wyoming and Weimar College and Academy. She accepts commissions for new artworks and is preparing for a solo show in July at Coffee Perk in Walla Walla.

 

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