The Art of Words Is Back at Follow Your Art
Written and Photographed by Ellen Putnam
On Friday evening, Follow Your Art Community Studios (FYACS) held an opening reception for the Art of Words exhibition, which has become an annual favorite at the Big Yellow House.
In this show, which was organized by Follow Your Art’s gallery coordinator Sara Gravante, artists and writers who are affiliated with FYACS are paired up and create art in response to one another’s work.
Within each artist-writer team, the artist and writer each create a “Prompt” piece, which they then share with their partner, who creates a “Response” piece with the same title and which is inspired in some way by the first piece.
Gravante shared that more pairs than ever had participated this year - 14 pairs, or 28 participants - so none of the pieces could be too large, in order for all of them to fit inside the gallery.
The exhibition is a favorite among the artists and writers at Follow Your Art because the two groups don’t always intersect, and The Art of Words offers them a chance to connect. Although they had collaborated for the exhibition, several artist-writer pairs actually met in person for the first time at the reception.
And since writers don’t often get the chance to have their work on display, this exhibition offers them the opportunity to show off their work in a different way.
A number of people at the reception - artists, writers, and community members alike - commented that this is their favorite show that Follow Your Art hosts each year.
The exhibition shows off a range of formats for both writing and art. Writers created poems and short stories in all genres - fantasy, realistic, children’s stories. Many artists’ signature styles were on display, too - Garin Boyd’s charcoal drawings, Kerry Pegoraro’s colorful patterns, Sally Gordon’s paper sculptures.
And it was exciting to see how the artists and writers responded to each other in different ways. Some simply depicted or described the prompt piece, while others took off on a feeling or idea from the prompt piece and created something completely new.
The Art of Words will be on display at Follow Your Art through the month of October. Gallery hours can be found here - stop by and browse any time the “Gallery Open” flag is out!
