Many Hands Make Art Work

By Rachel Beckman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006; Page C05

Outside of Gallery Neptune in Bethesda on Friday night, four artists sat at a long table across from four models. One of the models wore a crisp blouse and pink lipstick and held a closed-lip smile for the full 20-minute sitting. Another model was a little girl with blond Goldilocks curls who could barely sit still for the whole session.

Luckily for her, she didn't have to.

Five minutes into the session, artist Rob Stelboum signed the bottom-right of his drawing, put down his pencil and said, "Okay, that's it. Switch!" The models took their unfinished portraits and moved one seat down the line. Now each sat across from a different artist who would start drawing on top of what his or her colleagues had already begun.

"Being an artist is usually a private relationship between you and your art, and you don't want to give that up," Stelboum, 48, says. "But here, we're giving up control over the work. . . . You learn so much. You stretch so much."

Stelboum, Brandon Bloch, Alex Slater and Ming Zaleski make up a group called the 4traits. They've done these assembly-line portraits in public about 10 times over the past two years, plus lots of informal sessions in Dupont Circle cafes or outside the Barnes & Noble in Bethesda.

Elyse Harrison, owner of Gallery Neptune, saw the 4traits working at a July event at the Gallery Restaurant & Lounge in Silver Spring. She had so much fun watching them draw that she invited the group to her gallery for the Aug. 11 Bethesda Art Walk.

The 4traits usually give their work away, but Harrison thought they should put a donation box on the table. At the end of the night, they'd collected $135.

Bloch was charged with the task of finishing the prim lady's portrait. Somehow along the way, the picture ended up with a comic-book-style, black-ink upper lip and a light pink, colored-pencil lower lip. He had five minutes to make this portrait jell. He shaded the lower lip with a pen to make it match the rest of the mouth. He used a toxic-smelling silver marker to draw her long, straight hair. When Stelboum yelled, "Time!" Bloch handed the portrait to his happy customer.

"Problem solving," he says, as he stands up for a five-minute stretch break before four new models come sit for their portraits.