By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Co-Worker Gallery curators Jordan Buschur and Crystal Gale Phelps have a lot more territory to cover when giving a tour of their latest exhibition “Double Time” at River House Arts.
Back when they started the Co-Worker Gallery it was just that — a corner in the office they shared at Arts Commission of Toledo.
The concept was that one of them would select an art work and the other would pick another as a commentary on the first. A visual art call and response.
“After that we‘d talk about the works of art at length together and how conceptually they complement each other and are in conversation in the same way we’re in conversation daily in the office,” said Phelps.
The gallery existed in that corner and on Instagram. Each pair of works would be featured for two months. The curators would alternate roles of selecting the initial piece and selecting the response.
“When the pandemic happened, our office closed down and we went remote,” Buschur said. “So that ended Co-Worker because we didn’t have that corner to work with any more. In so many ways it was like the rug being pulled out from under you, and our little passion project of Co-Worker Gallery was something we put on pause.”
The two women have now moved on to new jobs — Buschur teaches drawing at the University of Toledo and Phelps is marketing manager at the Toledo Museum of Art – but their devotion to the project persisted.
“We were not sure how it would come back, but we knew we wanted it to come back,” Buschur said. “We had the idea that we wanted to do a larger show. Both of us have worked with Paula (Baldoni) and River House, so we approached her and she was into it. … We are kind of making up for lost time.”
Now instead of a two-works every two months, she said, “this is like two years-worth all in one room.”
“Double Time” is now on exhibit at River House Arts, 425 Jefferson Ave. in Toledo. On Sunday, June 12, at 3 p.m. Phelps and Buschur will offer a talk and tour of the exhibit.
In late May, they viewed the show for the first time after it was hung in the River House space.
“We have a lot of conversations about what artists we think would be good pairs,” Phelps said. “We also reached out to artists directly and asked them to submit art for the concept.”
Another distinguishing characteristic of the show is, Phelps said, “we only show female identifying or gender neutral artists.”
The gallery allows for each pairing to have its own space.
Some of the connections are obvious.
Phelps selected Akron artist Abby Cipar’s fabric sculpture “Ramblin’” and Buschur responded with “you can’t kill the begonia,” an oil painting on panel by Kate Sable from Washington D.C.
Phelps said she liked “the overall flow and energy of each,” adding “the way the fabric lines speak to the lines in the painting is really delicious.”
And both use bodily images, Buschur said. “But they do so differently.”
Both Sarah Dolan, from Washington D.C., and Suzanne Schireson from Providence, Rhode Island, employ figures at a remove from the viewer.
In her colored pencil drawing “Flower Raincoat,” Dolan plays on the absence of the figure, Buschur noted. While Schireson, in her oil on paper painting “Skylight Desk,” has the figure turned away from the viewer.
Both use complementary color schemes of pink and aqua-marine.
Other pieces feature strong contrasts.
Bowling Green artist Carrie Day’s ceramic wall hanging “High As a Loon” with its two creature children is paired with “Untitled Bachelorette with Skills,” a multi-media work on bedsheet by Turkish-born artist Hale Ekinci.
How do these figures – Ekinci’s woman confined in her domestic chores and Day’s airborne manic critters – relate?
“Part of it is the mystery of figuring that out,” Phelps said. “That’s the fun part of putting it together and solving those riddles, and solving those riddles that have no answer.”
Buschur and Phelps may have their ideas of the connections, but viewers are free to ponder for themselves how the two art works generate an energy between them.
Energy is what brings together Hamtramck artist Jessica Frelinghuysen’s photo “50 lbs of Onions (from the hometown workout series)” and Queens, New York, artist Keisha Prioleau-Martin’s “Best Friend,” Frelinghuysen is shown at a local market dead-lifting a sack of onions while the acrylic painting “Best Friend” captures the joy of a girl speeding along on her bike.
That exuberance is what links them, Buschur said.
Other artists with work one exhibit are: Phoenix Brown (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), Jaqueline Cedar (Brooklyn, New York), Cecile Chong (New York City), Marcy Ellis (Arizona), Echo Goff (Troy, New York), Adriane Herman (Portland, Maine), Jane Kang Lawrence (New York City), Kirby Miles (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Janet Nelson (Ypsilanti, Michigan), Tessa G. O’Brien (South Portland, Maine), Rachel Ostrow (Brooklyn, New York), Lina Puerta (New York City), Dayna Riemland (Ontario), and Amy Sacksteder (Detroit, Michigan/Long Island City, New York),
The exhibit continues through July 2. Visit River House Arts’ webpage to schedule a viewing.
