Artist Sarah E . Rehmer focused on scratched and distressed squares and the sense of recession in my work Returns , by pushing elements out into space in Revealing Stories and scraping black paint from the surface of her work to suggest a buried element below .
Initiated by Dietlind Vander Schaaf , New England WAX ( left ), Returns , encaustic , oil , paper , and fabric on panel , 10 x 10 inches , 2013 ; Completed by Sarah E . Rehmer , FusedChicago ( right ), Revealing Stories , encaustic , oil , and paper on panel , 10 x 10 x 6 inches , 2014
Many artists found the project quite challenging , particularly when the artist with whom they were partnered worked in a very different way than they did . For these artists , the project resulted in a temporary form of “ artist ’ s block ,” in which they literally hung their partner ’ s work on a wall and studied it over a course of weeks , puzzling over how they would respond and feeling incapable of doing so . Several artists , including Charyl Weissman , received work from their partners that was three-dimensional or utilized techniques and colors with which they were unfamiliar . As Weissman noted , “ I needed to develop a conceptual framework first , a departure from my typically intuitive approach .”