East Boston, October 7, 2010 – In late 2009, Atlantic Works gallery member Laura “Lola” Baltzell initiated a “crazy and enticing” collaborative art project: making a collage from each page of her old Russian edition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The War and Peace Project, when complete, will include more than 750 individual collages. This show will feature the first 300 of those collages.

Each collage is on Bristol paper 7 inches tall and 5 inches wide, and incorporates a page of Tolstoy’s Russian text along with images, text, maps torn and cut from old books, guides, newspapers and a variety of other materials.

Ms. Baltzell and her project partner, Lynn Waskelis, have assembled a small group of friends dubbed “Team Tolstoy.” Team members are Lucy Arrington, Otto Mayr, Lucy Zahner Montgomery, Emma Rhodes, Adrienne Wetmore. Otto Mayr, who lives in Berlin, is the team’s long-distance participant. From time to time the group invites guest artists to contribute a collage. Each artist is free to use their own style, yet the individual pieces are unified by use of the Russian text as well as from working side by side throughout the process.

Team Tolstoy has a blog on which they post an image each day. Each post also includes comments made by the artist about their process or reaction to the individual piece or the project. You can follow along at www.warpeaceproject.blogspot.com. 

The public is invited to attend the OPENING RECEPTION on Friday, December 3 from 6:00 to9:00 pm, and to visit the gallery on Fridays and Saturdays 2 – 6pm from December 3 through December 18. The public is also invited to attend the Atlantic Works Gallery’s monthly THIRD THURSDAY RECEPTION on Thursday December 16 from 6:00 to 9:00pm.

To schedule a private press viewing and interview at a more convenient time, please contact Lola Baltzell at 781-308-2259.