Heather Bryson, Contemplating Henry Moore: a Thoughtscape, Pencil, powdered graphite, and watercolor on paper, 84” x36"

American, b. 1974, playing from Akron, OH, USA

Heather Bryson is a versatile artist working in multiple mediums with a strong background in fiber arts. Originally from northwest Pennsylvania, she has lived and worked in the Akron/Canton area for the past 20 years. She graduated from Malone University with a Liberal Arts degree with a concentration in studio art, history, and English. She is currently the Gallery Curator at Malone University.

heatherbryson5006@sbcglobal.net https://www.facebook.com/HeatherBrysonFineArtist

Thoughts on the Telephone process

I found the process challenging, yet, rewarding. As I remember playing the game of Telephone as a child the fun of it was in the miscommunication. Hearing the original message as compared with the garbled message as it passed from child to child was meant to be funny. Usually the difference between the original message and the end result were small, but significantly changed the meaning of the original message. What I think is profound about playing Telephone on this large of a scale and with visual or poetic imagery is that the small “miscommunications” are expanded in a way that renders them no longer “miscommunications” but the opposite. Interpreting a work purely visually (or poetically, etc) opens up the possibilities for exploring the universality of what it means to be human through a particular work of art. While seriously contemplating the piece I was given to work from, taking in its formal qualities of line, form, and color to interpret the message, I was challenged as an artist not to merely copy what I saw. But rather, I worked to expand on the theme presented, to draw out the qualities in the broadest terms that related to the human figure and our life in connection with the planet. So whatever the original message may be, Telephone afforded the opportunity to participate in an uniquely artistic conversation. A conversation that broadened my appreciation of artistic medium to communicate the human story.