Compositions that work their way across several panels have become interesting to me in the past few years.

I confess that, initially, it was more a matter of necessity than inspiration.

I like to create big works. They are hard to handle in my studio and costly to ship when I create them in one big piece. So, sometimes, I create them in sections.

I had no idea when I first began to work this way that it would be so interesting. There’s just something about working out a composition in pieces that’s slightly different from working in a single picture plane. There’s work to do to be sure the sections speak to each other. I find it challenging and creative.

So I was interested last year when I saw the call-to-artists from Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) for works created as diptychs, or 2-panel works in which the content related to each other in some way.

This was also out of the ordinary for me because the works are small. Each panel was to be just under 12” square. And they are going to an exhibit in Australia. So, I thought: “I’m in.”

I was delighted to have a piece accepted. I’ll show it here. And, I created two additional works, and I’m sharing those too.

(Just a fun diversion: I took all three pieces with me last week to the meeting of my local art group. I laid them out on the floor and asked members to guess which piece of the three was accepted. Votes were pretty evenly split between each of the three. Just a reminder that we never know what’s important or interesting to a juror. And everybody likes different things.)

This is The Flying Wallendas, the work accepted for exhibit.

I  began the work as another experiment, a day last year when my local art group had a morning dedicated to creating from bits in our scrap piles. It meant that right from the beginning, I had a “Why not? I’ll give a try” attitude of playfulness. I picked things that did not appear to go together at all and just stared collaging.

As it evolved, I added more paint and collaged on layers. Here’s a close-up.

One note about works in multiple sections: It’s very important that they display as they are designed. If there are elements that need to line up in a certain way (in this work, the black linear elements) it’s up to the artist to put some instruction on there so the gallery art-hanger or eventual patron knows how the work should go. If these two pieces are butted right up against one another, the lines don’t connect correctly.

Piece #2:

Allowing playfulness to direct this experiment, I created a nature-based scene. This is Different Lunch Plans.

(You might remember that I wrote a blog post about this one in January, as I was creating the artwork, about working out the color relationships. You can read it HERE if you are interested)

Piece #3

Finally, I wanted something simple.

This is Floating Into the Place of Dreams. I enjoyed creating a work so different from the other two.

The Flying Wallendas will fly off to its Australian adventure next month. I have made the other two works available on my website, and you can find them HERE.

You might be inspired to take a look at the other works in this gallery too. There’s a mix of work in multiple panels as well as single picture plane works. Maybe you will discover interesting similarities and differences.

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

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