Stone Soup is a collaborative group of three artists - Gina Telcocci, Deborah Benioff Friedman, and Phyllis Lasché. Along with a devotion & concern for the natural environment, we three share a fascination with the effects of time, & the products and detritus of human endeavors. Each of us have long employed keen observations of nature, a broad range of media, & found objects as materials in our artwork. In our current experiments with collaboration we hope to magnify the depth & breadth of our individual experiences as humans & artists on the planet.
We began this collaboration out of a shared affinity for each other’s work, & an impulse to challenge ourselves. Our process is inspired by the Surrealist & Dada tradition of the “exquisite corpse”. Each of us brings an unresolved or failed piece of our own artwork to the group, and these are passed around to each of us to work on as we see fit, until we are all satisfied that the piece is finished. We agree at the outset that any alterations are allowed. Once we contribute an artwork to the process, it may be cut up, burned, disassembled, crumpled, stomped on, driven over, or whatever, by the artist whose turn it is to work on it.
“Ordinary Matter”, at GearBox Gallery, Oakland, CA, 2021
Our collaborative works celebrate the possibility of finding meaning in objects, and in the ordinary materials they spring from.
As artists, the three of us are observing and working with ordinary matter – the unnoticed, the discarded, extraneous, the disreputable and the beautiful scraps and fragments that we participants of this world leave in our wake.
The process: We each bring a failed or unresolved artwork of our own to give to the other two. Each of us works on those pieces in our own studio for a few weeks, then brings them to pass on to the next artist, and on and on, until we all agree that the work is “finished”. The original agreement is that, once an artwork is introduced to the group, any alteration, enhancement, or destruction to it is allowed.
In our individual studio practices we pour over the quirky objects produced by the other artists’ peculiar doings. Then we operate on those objects, using our own favorite media, strategies, and expertise. The gift of these works in progress, initially transformed by the attentions of one, is then shared and expanded upon by the others. The process demands openness, sensitivity, and a sometimes ruthless freedom. Surprises ensue.
In this exhibit are a selection of the pieces that have evolved from this visceral collaboration. They are unplanned, but carefully considered. We hope you find some of the beauty and terror in them that we find in ordinary matter.
- Stone Soup (Deborah Benioff Friedman, Phyllis Lasché, & Gina Telcocci) Fall 2020