art

Pressed between glass, found artifacts are reborn and soldered with colored glass and mirrors making a framed collage that honors the past and creates a new form. SoulPurl, Peter Javian and Caresh Walker's collaboration, is defined on its Web site as a cultivation of color, emotion, texture and history. Javian describes their work as "borrowed memories and beautiful mistakes."

The artists find inspiration in rummage and estate sales, thrift stores, spontaneous moments and the trash. In a house/studio space together, they share found art for their projects as well as ideas. They influence each other, but work separately. "The Traveling SoulPurl" is their first show as SoulPurl 77.

Walker's work captures a "50s and "60s nostalgia and often gives a nod to icons, musicians and entertainment personalities of the past. His collages often use handwritten letters, black-and-white photos and miscellaneous materials, like maps or blueprints. In Rust Garden, a picture of Billie Holiday pressed between glass and a piece of a vinyl record come together with orangey-brown sheets of stained glass and mirror using what appears to be a church window as a frame. In Hennessy's Hindsight, a tattered black-and-white photo of a jovial group seated at a celebratory affair, a handwritten letter with burned edges dated 1926 and signed "Lovingly, Florence," and a swatch of sheet music inscribed "Recorded by Harry James" are pressed between glass and soldered with mirror and red-, aqua-, green- and orange-stained glass.

Although Walker taught Javian how to work with stained glass, Javian"s work has a spin of its own. His Pegasus Mantel features images of mythological animals and scratched mirror sectioned by wooden strips of a black, chipped mantelpiece. Small, framed images (a Binaca advertisement, a skier, a woman with a cigarette burn on her arm) rest on its ledge.

"The Traveling SoulPurl," through Aug. 31, Zonk Art Gallery, 622 S. Fifth St., 484-557-2391.