Wednesday, January 28

collaborations




Today, with the snow, rain and ice settling into my body in a most unfriendly fashion, I'm skipping creating and thought I'd share another oldie but goodie!  It was a collaborative project, instigated by my friend and fellow artist Jennifer, over at reminders2bepresent.



We hadn't known each other long before she asked me if I'd like to work on a book collaboration with her.  She'd done several with other artists, and had amazing samples to inspire me into an immediate YES!!!

 
The idea was we each make our own books, with the same amount of pages, and the same dimensions.

She made an accordion book, while I bound mine more traditionally.  She used a black board for her pages, I used book board, which I paper machéd and gessoed.  


Once made, we each worked on three pages in our own book, then we traded,
worked over those three pages that had been started, and started on three new ones...

switched, worked over those three the other had started, started three new ones, etc -
back and forth, sometimes going over pages several times, setting no restrictions on when a page was *done*.


The beauty of this process, is the whole letting go - 


letting go of feeling your own work is too precious to be worked over; letting go of it going in a direction that wasn't the one you intended; letting go of something you thought was great being covered up.  

Lessons in impermanence, 







on trusting the process, and just getting to play!



I only have one shot of Jennifer's, seen here...

I'm currently working on my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project, which is more about art and community participation, than collaboration as I've described it above - and on a huge scale, with more than 2,700 signed up to participate.  I plan to share more of that in upcoming days.

Many in the blogging community are active in some fabulous collaborative and interactive projects that demonstrate the beauty of creativity and community.  A few include Seth at The Altered Page, where he has invited fellow bloggers to create and record their own Disintegration process through a sort of nature performance art.  He is also in a round robin collaborative book project, at Inner Works, along with fellow blogger artists Veronica Funk, Roxanne Evans-Stout, Jill Zaheer, Supria Karmakar, and Rita Vindedzis.  Many of you are out there knitting up a storm to warm up light posts, trees, and telephone poles - thanks to grrl + DOG and her Global Guerrilla Knit up Challenge!  I'm inspired by each of these projects - are you involved in any?  

I'm excited to be starting a similar book exchange project with Lynne Hoppe soon.  We'll share our progress as we get going on it!

To see these photos more closely go to my photo album,
for some reason, blogger didn't let them link to show a close up - 
may be too many photos in one post!

15 comments:

  1. Soem great glimpses here. The photograph of the completed book at the end is awesome. And thanks for highlighting some of the collaborations I am involved with.

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  2. Very impressive collaboration. I'm thinking this might work well for painting as well. Something I may very well look into. Although I must say this type of journaling, creating such beautiful books, is starting to seep into my creative conciousness. It seems so personal yet so social in the blog environment.

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  3. How wonderful to see the visions of two artists coming together to form one beautiful creation ! It is amazing that you two did not know each other before the process and yet you shared such an intimate space and experience with such openness ! Many collaborations have multiple artists working on the same theme or from the same point of inspiration, which has some incredible results as well, but yours was two artists building one piece together, each putting their touch one each page. Really amazing how it all came together !

    Haven't been involved in this type of collaboration yet but as developing and being part of a community of like-minded artists (in the real world too - not just virtually !!!) is one of my goals, I hope it will come in time. My artist's soul is craving that kind of connection.

    So inspiring, as always, beautiful Karin !
    (May the day bring you many peaceful and pain-free moments...)
    ox ox Kim

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  4. Thank you so much for sharing this project. It sounds like a wonderful process and a great way to get to know someone whether a new or long time friend.
    Seeing these pages makes me even more excited for the canvas project that Liz and I are doing.

    Thanks
    Jackie

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  5. Thanks Seth, I always enjoy reading about your many joint projects, and the others your highlight on your log!

    Yes Curio! Another project I forgot to write about is one at Illustrating Stories, which is a collaborative canvas/painting project between two artists. I think the books have the potential to be like a bound series of paintings...

    Thanks Kim - yes, it has the potential to be a really wonderful way to get to know someone very deeply, very quickly, as the shared creative process surely will :)

    You are welcome Jackie! It was yours and Liz's project that reminded me of my book and what a good topic for a post collaboration is! I've linked to yours above in my comment to Curio, and look forward to seeing how your project evolves!!

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  6. WOW! I am blown away by the photos and would LOVE LOVE LOVE to embark on a book swap with fellow artists.

    Beautiful!

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  7. This post feels like an artist date, ala Julia Cameron. Inspiration abounds.

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  8. wow...great works!

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  9. Collaborative projects like this are so much more involved and cool - if you ever have time I'd love to work on one!

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  10. Hi Cara, if you do, please let me know - I'd love to see and hear about what the experience is like for you!

    Thanks Robyn, that's a big compliment (to me!) :)

    Glad you enjoyed them Eli!

    Hi Patti, we can talk ;^)

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  11. The book is fantastic Karin. I love Lynne's art too. The one she did on Gaza with the John Lennon song was wonderful.

    Thank you for reading. Isn't unbelieveable how we think the doctor knows more than us.

    When Angelique was first diagnosed with lupus and said that everything was hurting, the rheumatologist was such a complete dick head. She hadn't seen Angelique before and thought she was exagerating her symptoms, and made her cry and feel like a hypochondriac. I wouldn't leave the room until she gave her a blood test. Next day calls me and says Angelique had serious problems from the lupus attacking the kidney and had to start chemo that week, she was 23.

    I still hate that bitch, she left Manitoba shortly after.

    Anyway....

    Love Renee

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  12. Sorry for venting Karin. I know this is a peace loving blog and that is only one of the reasons I come to it. But you can ban my comments because that is just how I roll sometimes.

    xoxo

    Love Renee

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  13. Well Renee, life experience isn't all peace and love, nd I'm all about "keepin' it real", so you're staying put! Even when you love your doc, they can say potentially hurtful things. My most recent visit included MRI images that showed (i paraphrase) "levels of inflammation that I only see with severe infection or advanced inflammatory disease... so the pain your experiencing, you aren't making it up." gee, thanks - was there a question about that in your mind?!? I had to laugh... what else can you do?

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  14. Great that you were able to get so many people involved in your community art project.

    I am still looking for the recipe that would help me to reach that kind of goal!

    Cheers

    ps How did you manage to have a translation button on your blog?

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  15. Hi Elisabetta,
    well, the projects above were really initiated by others more than me, and I've just blabbed about it! I think a great way to get involved with a massive one is to go to theArt House Coop and sign up for one of their huge community collaborative projects and traveling exhibitions.

    For the translating widget, I went to google gadgets and searched for a translator widget - they have a bunch to choose from. Some just do words, others do your whole page. If anyone wants it contact me via email I can send you the full code I used, if you can't find it - I tried to post it and wasn't able to.
    ~Karin

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