This past Spring I started collaborating on some art collages with an artist I didn’t really know—His name is Rob Robinson and he’s a painter on the west coast.

I had written an open invitation to collaborate on some art work to fellow members of an online community that I had joined (started by Seth Godin about groups, leadership and connection) and Rob was the first one who was game to give it a try.

We finished our first collaboration and it was fun and we both kind of liked the end result, so I thought I’d post it here and talk about the process.

Structure

Since the two of us had never met or worked together, we thought some structure might help us get started. So I suggested we start with color parameters–Black, White, Grey, Yellow and Red. He liked that and offered to start. Yay! Initiative!

First Steps

He created several “starts” on heavy 5″ x 7″ watercolor paper, took some pics, and asked me to pick one.  I said, “Aw, just send ‘em all” because sometimes it’s better for me to work on several things at once–I fuss less.

That said, the image on the left is the one that snowballed as I began working on it, so I kept going. And that’s how it looked when it arrived.

The first thing I did was take one of my collage scraps–a long narrow piece–and glue it to the right side–the addition of which made the collage seem vertical and I began treating it like that.

(Maybe because I chose the color parameters, I already had scraps from other collages that fit the color scheme.)

Solving Design Problems

One great thing about collaborating is that I’m a little less focused on content and just respond to the visual information in front of me.

When I’m doing this, I’m solving a design problem and not trying to “say” something important.

That can be liberating because then I’m mostly thinking about formal elements like composition, balance, color, depth–and then it’s more like I’m just indulging in a favorite pastime.

And really, I perceive the “making” process as basically like this: Responding-Fixing/Responding-Fixing.

Each mark I make is a response to a previous mark which then often requires more “fixing/responding” , which then creates more design “problems” to continue to “fix” (or just “respond to”) and the project/piece/design slowly evolves to  a new place where things start to cohere somehow and the momentum shifts from being a design “problem”  into something that feels  “resolved” or “almost resolved”. And that’s very satisfying.

Anything I work on really, I perceive as a design problem that I get to solve.  And when I say “design problem”, I mean it in a good way–a puzzle, a challenge, an opportunity.

I don’t know if this sounds kind of fancy-pantsy/lofty or artspeak-y, but it’s what I think I’m doing whenever I create anything–an earring, a small decoupage vase, a wall hanging, a collage.  And as I work on this collaboration collage, this is the process I’m going through.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

So, where was I? Oh yes.

After gluing my initial strip, I decided I needed to add more pinky-red-ness because 1) I love that color and 2) I had to balance that big pink blob I’d just added on the right with some pinky-redness in the bottom corner–so I got going with tissue paper in that bottom band area–and basically unconsciously ended up creating a kind of tried and true 3 rectangle layout which I generally find visually pleasing.

From there, I began playing with bouncing back and forth between accentuating the flat surface of the paper and creating depth–I like doing that on non-representational images I’m working on–and began insinuating  some sort of vague “narrative” in smaller spots with bits of map images from a card line I designed years ago ( I also deviated from the color agreement here, but decided he’d be okay with it because it seemed to work okay with the other colors.)

This “decision” about the map scraps, however, was really born from trying to solve the problem I thought I’d made the bottom right corner–which looked a bit muddy to me at that stage in the collaging.

The next step (that led to the map images) was to scavenge. I rummaged, rummaged through my bits…which went something like this:

“Hmmm, no, no, no, maybe, no, maybe, oh, I forgot about that bit, no, no, maybe…hmmm, love these primitive map scraps with the words, that might be interesting….maybe that would work…hmmm…let me lay that down and see…oh no, that’s a bit too much, hmm, maybe it’s still a good choice, but just needs to be  smaller…rearrange, rearrange ….hmmm, hey, that’s not bad.” Glue down. Yes, I like that.

And then, of course, when I liked how I “fixed” that muddy spot, it created a new vacuum in the composition that I needed to “fix” and I realized I needed to echo that image above on the left as well. From there, I continued that same process and just kept adding and arranging–listening and looking and solving/evolving as I went.

The Collaboration/Performance Pressure Thing

At this point, the collage was teetering on looking right/feeling done, but I wanted to add something surface-y like buttons, but I must admit I was torn–would my collaborator think that was too crafty? (Ah, worrying what the other person will think! One of the big challenges of collaborating!)

I went to art school and know how the fine art world can poo-poo the decorative thing, and I’m thinking he’s a straight ahead painter type guy and I don’t really know him yet.  So part of me is imagining him rolling his eyes at collaborating with a goofy stranger who thinks crafty things are artistic (because I’m adding these surfacey elements), but I finally remember that it’s me who’s solving the design problem and I think it needs buttons. (This is also a kind of hyper-awareness about all the little hierarchies in the artworld, which are, of course, ridiculous, but that’s another blog post..)

So I lay them on the collage-in-progress for a day or so without gluing, wondering, should I add thread to the holes or just leave them? I finally decide thread is too busy and glue.  At this point I think, yes, it’s done.

More on the Collaboration/Conversation Part

It’s both interesting and hard to think about the other artist as your working, and kind of weirder to do that when you don’t know them at all.

In the spirit of collaborating, I always want to make sure I’m “responding to” rather than “arguing with” what’s on the page, and if you think too hard about that, you can get too caught up in trying to mind read, which doesn’t help the responding process at all.

I guess it’s exactly like all our other collaborations in life–balancing being mindful of the other person while also being authentic to who you are.

Perhaps this part of the art collaboration/conversation process is just a variation of what we do anyway with our individual work and the “audience’ we are imagining in our heads who are either liking or hating what we’ve made.

I do think in some ways it’s both easier and harder to respond to someone else’s marks, than to start fresh with your own. And I like the creating together thing–it’s social, somehow.

There’s also something about being a team I like–maybe because I was raised by a football coach? (Now there’s a blog post!)

Have you ever collaborated? Do you want to? Do you agree with me about the making process? Do you do it differently? Do you like thinking about the making process or do you just want to create and not analyze it? I’d love to know!
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