It’s All in the Process

When artists talk about process, to paraphrase a New Age clich, they are often invoking the idea that “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

Art isn’t limited to the end result. It encompasses what the artist experiences along the way and the accidents and epiphanies that occur. An art object has a kind of life span, during and after its completion.

For years, artist and printmaker Wayne Kline, who died Jan. 15 at age 55 from cancer, made his process into a celebrated local institution as the owner of the Rolling Stone fine art press for 20 years. Kline’s own nuanced, shape-shifting experiments with the form are on view at City Gallery East in Traditions, a show featuring two artists deeply invested in process.

In two bodies of work, “Mother, May I?” and “Nineties, Man!,” Kline features shifts of design and color in works composed of dramatic triangular shapes that range from the mottled black and whites of composition notebooks to intense, jewel-tone colors. The two series of lithographs hang in a dramatic procession like banners from the gallery’s ceiling, allowing viewers to stroll among the work in a nicely intimate way.

If archetypal feminine artmaking often entails weaving and sewing, then George Beasley’s medium seems equally archetypally male. Like other male artists who find spirituality and art in fire, Beasley makes that violent, comforting, hypnotic force part of his process. There are numerous photographs taken by Linna Dean that document Beasley’s iron pour performances in which a whole cast of fire workers tend the orange conflagrations that will eventually melt the iron that composes his sculptures. The more time you spend with it, the clearer it becomes that Beasley’s work is less about the end result than the drama of its creation. From the interweaving of his Scottish heritage, to a brief tutorial in all you ever wanted to know about peat farming (the alternative fuel source of Beasley’s corner of Scotland) but were afraid to ask - for Beasley, and for Kline, it’s clearly all about the journey.

Traditions: 11th Masters Series. Through April 1. Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. City Gallery East, 675 Ponce de Leon Ave. 404-817-6980. www.bcaatlanta.com.??