A creative collaboration
Tabby Ivy, What Speaks Inside These Walls, oil, 18 x 24.
A 2018 Facebook friend request has forever expanded Tabby Ivy’s world. “It’s taken me to a much deeper place emotionally and creatively, making me a better painter,” says the Bigfork, MT, artist.
Ivy’s work—muted, tonal expressions of nature’s fleeting moments—prompted Norway-based writer Damon Falke to reach out to the artist. The two discovered that they had a mutual respect for each other’s creative output and decided to see where a collaboration would lead. “In a strange way, the distance between Montana and Norway, the time difference, and even the isolation caused by the pandemic allowed for an intimacy within our collaboration,” Ivy notes. “Damon’s work focuses a great deal on how memory plays an important role in our lives—what we carry with us, and how silence and quiet can allow reflection on life’s journey. Loss, memory, and silence became part of our story and found their way into our work.”
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- Tabby Ivy, Reflecting Time, oil, 30 x 40.
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- Tabby Ivy, At the End of the Day, oil, 18 x 24.
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- Tabby Ivy, Little Is Ever So Clear, oil, 5 x 4 feet.
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- Tabby Ivy, Some Places Still Keep the World, oil, 30 x 35.
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- Tabby Ivy, In That Space a Moment Before, oil, 40 x 45.
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- Tabby Ivy, Winter Grazing, Montana, oil, 16 x 20.
The poignant culmination of their almost-three-year collaboration is an exhibition, titled Between Artists: Life in Paintings and Prose, that runs from Friday, June 17, through Saturday, August 20, at the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell, MT. More than 30 paintings, including those seen here, plus 10 essays, poems, and selected email exchanges provide insight into the pair’s creative explorations. A book of their work was published this spring.
“I’ve always been drawn to quiet scenes of gray days, muted landscapes shrouded in fog or low clouds,” Ivy says. “It’s hard to describe in words the feelings inspired by these scenes, but after spending time with Damon and his work, I feel I’m closer to understanding how I relate to these scenes and how to convey the beauty in impermanence within my paintings.” —Beth Williams
See Ivy’s work at FoR Fine Art Gallery (Bigfork, MT, Whitefish, MT, and Tucson, AZ); The Art Spirit Gallery of Fine Art (Coeur d’Alene, ID); Radius Gallery (Missoula, MT); www.tabbyivy.com.
This story appeared in the June/July 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.