Collaboration of Vaughan & Dufour

Vaughan contemplates:
Rachel Dufour has become a productive assistant to the building of my work, and, ultimately, a fine assemblage artist. For more than 10 years we have been working together on art. Our work visually harmonizes so well together that I am, time and again, thrilled to hang a show with this creative thinker.

Examples of Vaughan-Dufour Duo Pieces

When these two artists team up and have shows together, a new body of work generally emerges from each artist, while a few, special pieces are created as a duo combination. Magic happens when a mix of painting by Vaughan and built-out sections by Dufour become a “Vaughan–Dufour.” These two women joke that when you say that combo in a playful German accent, it sounds like the word “von-der-ful.” Both artists agree that the experience of working together on art is, in fact, wonderful.

PAINTED BY VAUGHAN | CONSTRUCTED BY DUFOUR

Pacific Gesture | SOLD

63 x 29”
acrylic on wood with antique temple figure & wood parts

This beautifully-crafted, meditation piece was created by Mary Vaughan and Rachel Dufour together as a duo piece. The ocean painting by Vaughan sets a calming stage for a pacified temple buddha alongside old wood parts that Dufour has framed as a serene panorama. When looking up the term “peace,” the word “pacify” or “pacific” came up, then, the phrase “Pacific Gesture” was used to describe tranquility.

For Prose the Bell Tolls

49 x 13.5”
antique parts & old brass profile
1400.

This duo piece by Vaughan & Dufour pays homage to classic Literature. A brass bust of Charles Dickens sits atop a Victorian assemblage of garden and lit hearth, two elements that epitomize the English novel throughout the ages.

Estuary

19 x 55”
acrylic on board with antiques plinth
Collection of Sutter Health
Santa Rosa, CA

This landscape depicts the quiet marshes of Maine. The rich cool tones of this painting called for this vintage plinth and long blue panel to be added. This unique attachment gives the image a feeling of nostalgia. The simple cut corner angles are also important to the overall composition.

Rhapsody in Blue

47.5 x 22.5”
acrylic on board with antique crib parts
Collection of Jennifer & Greg Tate
Santa Rosa, CA

This painting of the rocky shorelines of Maine is based on soothing light and air. Collecting, then deconstructing an old 1930’s baby blue crib for its worn wood, a unique frame element came to fruition. The beauty of this combination was not only right in terms of a feeling of time gone by, but when lit properly, the shadows of line on this piece add an aesthetic related to Mission-style architecture.

Walking on Air

13 x 10”
Collection of Sonja Bedford
Santa Rosa, CA

This whimsical piece of three pines in the wind was made from remnant paintings of Vaughan’s and playful construction by Dufour. Three French quarter marbles are metaphor to the sacred blue marble we live on and the beauty of rolling meadows.

Eden Saw Play

33 x 101”
acrylic on board with antique panels & rolling marbles on shelf
Collection of Danyelle Burns
Hastings, NE

This large diptych ( two-part painting ) acts like a garden panorama of fertile earth gone wild. Two small birds are subtle additions on each side of the piece, looking at one another from afar. The title comes from the hymn, Morning has Broken, with intention to represent what God provides in terms of infinite beauty. The framework is made up of many old architectural parts, hand-crafted piece by piece until it was complete and whole. Old French quarter marbles roll along an added shelf at its base; another metaphor to how quickly life rolls by.

Scruff

26.5 x 7”
acrylic on board with base door
Collection of Florie & Orion Tiscornia
Santa Rosa, CA

Here is a delightful example of how a “Vaughan–DuFour” piece can happen. When a humorous ostrich painting came about within a series of bird heads Vaughan was doing, a little grey door that had been collected, matched the neutral palette. Talking it over, it became important for the door to open. DuFour then built-out a construction that would work with the grey door and the painting. Vaughan then painted an ostrich egg inside, making this a surprise gift for the active viewer.

Atonement

36 x 43”
acrylic on canvas with wooden inlays
2000.

This large owl head is ecologically disconcerting with a deliberate stare-down, if not showdown with Man. From the antique panel, reminiscent of a wing pattern, to a small veiled window acting like a confessional booth, the message here is one of atonement in terms the stewardship of the earth. Large orbs on a foreground shelf suggest the blue marble we live on.

Acapella

21 x 61”
acrylic on wood within 1930’s radio encasing
Collection of Joyce Shissler
Edmund, OK

A vintage radio is taken apart and restored by Dufour for its Art Deco appeal. Vaughan drops a three-part painting into the wooden adornment and, suddenly, this duo piece is all about the metaphor of the music of the earth. A chickadee is the warbler who brightly sings, with no instrumental accompaniment other than the hum of bramble. Three old marbles roll in homage to the blue marble we live on.

Still on the Roses

25 x 42”
acrylic on wood with antique lamp statuette & shelf of 19th century rolling clay marbles
2200.

This nostalgic painting of burgeoning garden by Vaughan and timeless, cast iron cherub as a mid panel crafted by Dufour is as wistful a vestige as they come. Here, the past is the present, signaling a continuum of beauty within the song of the earth. The title comes from a line in the gospel hymn “In the Garden” written in 1912 by C. Austin Mills.