This week’s blog posts are all by Amanda Jolley. Last week saw Michelle Belto introducing our collaborative series; this week Amanda! Enjoy and savor the uniqueness of each~

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Last July, after a gloriously exhausting week of staying up too late with all the wonderful people at Encausticamp, the 2015 instructors traipsed to the Home Depot for a little color pickin’. We each chose a color from Glidden’s paint swatch sections; red, blue, yellow, orange, green, violet, and one neutral from either the grey or brown section. I don’t think a one of us chose a same color as the other.

I laid out my color swatches all autumn and winter as I worked on other things, mostly folding lots and lots of origami tessellations. The presence of the colors began a dialogue with my other work and I soon found the colors popping up in a separate series I began painting in January. The colors gained ground and a louder voice until they were ready to be released onto the 7×21 Encausticbords.

After laying down the first geometric layer, I allowed the colors to continue their dialogue on the panels. I found their statements to be clear, precise. One would speak and then another would retort. Some colors were more soft-spoken than others. I believe this color dialogue mirrored our time together after EncaustiCamp last year when we dreamed up this collaborative exhibit.

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All the words we spoke that day collided hurly-burly, ideas scattered everywhere. The colors brought us together, distinct yet unified, and over winter, our words expanded to tangible marks on panels.