Artists Collaborate For Silver Spring Exhibit

Annie Turner thought she'd do something different for her next gallery exhibit. The one-year director of the Washington Printmaker's Gallery in Silver Spring paired the gallery's member artists' work alongside non-members with similar themes.

"It is interesting to see how people's work relates to each other even when they're not collaborating," Turner said.

Landscape prints hung alongside destroyed landscapes, while colorful landmark images shared wall space with monochromatic images of both landscapes and nature.

These works were a part of the Washington Printmaker's Gallery's newest exhibit, Director's Cut, which held an opening reception last weekend from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center on Georgia Avenue. Every month, the gallery features new works by some of its 39-member artists who produce their work on-site.

"This particular exhibit is special because it brings outside artists in and also adds a whole new perspective," Turner said.

These perspectives included themes ranging from landscapes and Washington, D.C., landmarks to clothing and popular culture. Works were done in silkscreen, monotype and etchings. 

Artist member Pauline Jakobsberg's work takes up a whole wall of the gallery. She started out making collagraph prints of dresses with metal and fabric, taking inspiration from her past as a daughter of a New York garment salesman who "would bring home scraps of unwanted fabrics and last year's styles." 

She then moved away from framed works, creating life-sized dresses on real metal hangers along with miniature ones in different mediums. 

Lindsay McCulloch gets inspiration from the outdoors, creating two-color silk screens of landscapes spied while on a drive from Boston to Maryland.

"I have made 20 already and hope to make more trips, and my goal is to get to 100 pieces," McCulloch explained.

The exhibit runs from Aug. 31 to Sept. 26 and will have a closing reception on the last day. All of the works on display are for sale, as well as other pieces from a member artist exhibit, which runs for a month.

Washington Printmakers Gallery is a cooperative print gallery, which relocated to Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in February 2010. WPG is expected to have a floor in the new Silver Spring library when it opens in 2014.