Today we’d like to introduce you to Leslie Gaworecki and Marlo Saucedo.
Hi Leslie and Marlo, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Marlo Saucedo and I (Leslie Gaworecki) met because we are both artists with studios in the Silos at Sawyer Yards. In 2018 our creative campus hosted a collaborative exhibition titled “Come Together” in which artists paired up to create new artwork. I asked Marlo to work with me because we both used text in our work – though we use it very differently. I thought we could come up with something interesting and we did! We made one painting for that show and immediately we both saw the potential and started dreaming up an entire exhibition. That’s how Color:Story started.
The first Color:Story exhibition was in 2019. The idea was to reach out to writers and poets and use their words as inspiration and as visual elements in the artwork. Marlo and I created every painting in the show with inspiration from 17 writers. While we were working on the art, we weren’t sure how it would be received. But the opening night was electric. It was clear that both the visual and literary communities were excited about the joining of these two creative worlds. We made the writers the star of the show and they read live next to the painting inspired by their words. 350 people squeezed into the Silos Gallery 200 to hear that night. We knew we had to do it again.
For Color:Story 2021 we honed in on what we really love about this project. We included other artists, we accepted 2 and 3 dimensional work, and we focused in on poetry. 18 artists and 23 poets were chosen to participate and we’ve gotten so much positive feedback from them about the experience of the collaboration and the opening night reading. We are planning for Color:Story 2023 now the Opening Event will be April 8th, 2023
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Covid was quite a struggle, it postponed us for a year because we really believe gathering in person is key to this event.
Working with artists and poets has been dreamily smooth. They all seem so pleased to participate. For that, we are grateful.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Marlo and Leslie are both visual artists.
Marlo uses words to create form, specializing in work that literally tells a story, art that can be read. Her work could be a single word repeated in 175 languages, or a family’s story, or 2000 bands from the cassette mixtape era. The words may create the Houston skyline, a tree, a figure, or anything else.
Leslie is a painter who uses color to create a mood. Words play a role in her work but are often used to set the intention and then painted over or scrawled into wet paint in final layers.
Together Leslie’s color gives new depth to Marlo’s imagery while Marlo gives structure to Leslie’s loose color fields. The pieces we’ve collaborated on for Color:Story has been some of our very best and has continued to produce new ideas and exciting new projects.
Color:Story is unique in that it bridges creative worlds. Artists attend countless art openings. Poets go to readings and spoken word events. Until we hosted Color:Story we hadn’t experienced the two communities join together and we love what’s happening when we do.
Color:Story is also unique because the text of the poem itself has to appear in some way in each piece of art. In some works the text dominates. In some, it can be hidden or obscured. It all depends on how each artist works with the text.
We are most proud of some lasting creative relationships that have formed around Color:Story. The support network and confidence we give to each other. We know of one poet, Brandon Dillon, who was new to writing and read in front of a crowd for the first time at Color:Story. He now has a book of poetry out! One of our artists, Heidi Lowell, was inspired by Color:Story to create a sister exhibition in Austin called “Sound and Vision” which pairs artists with musicians. We love to see the reach this project has had.
Contact Info:
- Website:www.colorstoryart.com
- Instagram: @colorstoryart | @lesliegaworeckiart | @marlosaucedoart
Image Credits
Daniel Ortiz
Claire McAdams Photography
