Artists have been working since Friday to fill Gallery 51 in North Adams with their works during the '100 Hours in the Woodshed' event.

NORTH ADAMS — Among the scraps of magazine pages, old cups of coffee and discarded Papa Gino's pizza boxes, 16 artists cut, pasted, sewed and spliced as they raced against the clock Monday afternoon during the final hours of the "100 Hours" art marathon held at Gallery 51.
The event, which spanned four days and nights, brought together 20 collage artists from not only the Berkshires but also from New York City, Boston and Canada to create new work for the gallery's newest exhibit, "100 Hours in the Woodshed," which opens tonight. An opening reception will be held from 6 to 9.

"January tends to be a quiet month," said local artist Daniel "Danny O" O'Connor on Monday. "The big idea was to bring people to town who are not familiar with the Berkshires and take care of them. Hopefully, their memories will be of the Berkshires as this comfortable arts utopia. That's why very few Berkshire artists were chosen for the event, but we do have a strong local component." O'Connor proposed the idea of holding a "collage party" to Jonathan Secor, MCLA director of special programs, after attending one at the ZieherSmith Gallery in New York City's Chelsea art district last summer. As part of the show, artists created their pieces for the exhibit in the gallery, which was open to the public for the 100 hours they had to make the artwork. O'Connor said more than 200 people toured the gallery on Saturday alone. " I think we got the residual from the free day at Mass MoCA," he said. "But it's really great. We have people that have come in every day to see the progress. We have people who come in at 9 p.m. to see what's gone on during the day." Secor said the show was being well received by local residents. " On Saturday, the crowds almost became a problem," he said. "At one point, you could look out at the gallery and there wasn't room to move, never mind work. I can imagine how hard it is for some artists to work beside other artists instead of being alone in their own studio. Then you add the crowds in."

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Lana Z. Caplan of Boston was in the final stages of editing together vintage movie trailers — creating short videos that explore the topic of relationships. " I've made a one-minute romance made from the trailers and another that explores relationships through a lion and tiger fight," she said. "I want people to take away the idea that some relationships are more complicated than others — and as equally as heated. In the film, you can see (the lion and tiger) are clearly not trying to maim each other, they're playing. It's like some more complicated relationships." Caplan also created an abstract film collage with the optical sound strips from the lion and tiger fight scenes. "You're looking at the sound, but it's silent," she said. "It's the sound of the lion, tiger and the fight, yet it's silent. I'm thinking of titling it 'Roar.' " (...)