Meet some of the Crew

Its great to see the painting and everything come together, but who are all those people doing the work in the pictures? Those people are Laura and Rick Brown, Marie Brown, the Painting Team and all the amazing students and volunteers. Marie keeps everything together. She makes sure everything is happening that needs to, makes sure everything is on schedule, keeps everyone happy, and makes sure everyone is contently fed, even those of with difficult dietary restrictions and fun allergies. Laura and Rick make sure everything that needs to happen with the project are happening, as well as solving any problems that arise, like distorted images and how to manage and maintain the boards when they are in two different locations. They are also the creators of Handshouse Studio and the masterminds behind the project. The Painting Team gets the project done, with the help of the students and volunteers. So here some names and faces to match to the pictures you have seen so far!

The Painting Team, a fun crew

So who's been doing what? Site management has been led up by Nick and the Loik-ness Monster, Jason. They make sure the gallery is protected from us and that everything has a place, and is safe. Panel reconstruction has been managed by Nick, the Jasons, and Rick. They have been taking all the boards and turning them into the panels for painting. Krista, Emily and Ariel have been taking care of preparing all the panels which means sizing all the boards before they get turned into panels, sanding numbers and marks off, and gessoing. Krista came up with a new recipe for the gesso, which now uses chalk and zinc oxide instead of marble dust because we learned that chalk was more commonly used in Poland. Rashin and Case have been doing all the pigment management, which means organizing and coming up with more accurate colors and ratios for the paints. We have gotten more information on the colors since the last set of paintings so there is a lot of new stuff to figure out. There are often changes as we get more information and learn more. I (Cailigh) have been doing a lot of the computer related tasks like formatting images to be high resolution full scaled images to the dimensions of the ceiling sections. Also making adjustments as needed, creating a log of all the boards and numbers, and the blog. Ariel and Laura have been working on the tracings to get as close to the original paintings as possible. Rick, Marie and Laura have been going shopping to make sure everyone has everything they need to get the project done.

These are the awesome students and volunteers that have been working on the project so far. Ola, Kasia, and Zofia are from the Museum.

The students and volunteers for the project have been great! Ali is no stranger to the painting having done a Handshouse workshop at Oberlin. The project is moving along at a great pace with all their help. The goal for this Workshop will be to do two zodiacs and two triangles. So far one triangle is fully traced, the second triangle tracing has been started, one zodiac is fully traced, and the second is over half done. Paint brushes will be able to come out soon! 

Ola, Kasia, and Zofia taught everyone a lot about Rzeszow and the Polish Jews who lived here before and during the War with a great presentation. It started with an interactive activity that involved exploring the area around the synagogue/gallery to give individuals a chance to reflect and discover places about the area that they were curious about. For the second part of the activity, everyone shared one of their observations and the three women answered questions and gave new insight on everything, and explained the different perspectives on the subject. For the second half they gave a presentation on Rzeszow itself and what happened here during the War. They gave three examples that were photographs and accounts of experiences of individuals.

Some of the observations from the first part of the activity