It’s not too common to come across a group of collaborative artists. Occasionally you’ll see partnerships with two people, galleries or collectives that consist of several individual artists, but rarely do you find a group of artists who regularly work on a piece of art together. The collaborative approach is something my friends and I got used to when we were in college and we would pass around whatever we were working on in our sketchbooks and the others would add their contribution until eventually something altogether new would make its way back to the original artist. Later we started experimenting with large abstract murals using oil pastel. We would designate a wall in our living room and tack up a large sheet or piece of canvas and invite our friends to make additions when they stopped by, but more often than not it was a core group of two or three of us providing most of the direction. Working with this process had interesting challenges and benefits. On one hand, it’s always easier to be motivated to work when you have a friend or two pushing you, you are exposed to different techniques and styles, and you aren’t as intimidated by the vast blank canvas, because in the end you’re not up against it on your own. Working on the pieces collaboratively forces you to accommodate other people’s choices, you have to be fluid and adapt to their additions. You may have plans for a section, and someone else may get to it first. You may add something and someone else might draw something on top of it or appropriate it into another piece of their design. This form of collaboration lends itself to abstract work, because you don’t have to balance or coordinate the different planes of reality each person is drawing from (although that could lead to some interesting results) and also just because of the spontaneous nature of it. In some ways these pieces evolve from the first marks to the finished products through a process of reacting—reacting to what someone else just put down, reacting to the new shape you see develop, reacting to the shape that disappeared since the last time you looked. It helps develop good habits in allowing yourself to let go of what is there in the present to see what might develop in the future. I find that I tend not to take the work so personally when I work with other artists, which is very freeing and helps me get out of my head and into the art, but you also have to give up some of your personal identity, and your will becomes subordinate to the collective will of the collaborators. If you have never tried working collaboratively on a piece of art, I definitely recommend getting a few of your friends together (artist and amature alike), put on some good music, and trade off working on something every few songs. Or you can set up something big (like a plain bed sheet) and let everyone go at it at all at once. One of the best things about these collaborations is when people who inevitably make the claim “But I’m not an artist” or “I can’t draw” actually give it a shot and realize that they enjoy it, and when the piece is done, they can be proud of their contribution. Give it a try sometime.
Wall Six |
Passing in T-minus One Minute |
My friends and I continue to make art in collaboration, but these days it’s a little more orchestrated. We can all still work together on the designs for our copper artwork, sometimes we trade off on the same design, other times we divide up sections of a piece among us and let the stronger suits of each person to shine through in the areas where they are needed. We also share the actual production process of translating a design into a finished etched copper piece. There is more to the finished piece than the subject matter, sometimes the object itself is part of the work of art. The process of etching is fairly involved and it’s nice to have all the different steps in the process to work on, so you never feel like you’re doing the same thing all the time. In this way, all three of us truly have our hands on every piece that we produce at one point or another.
war seduced love |
A Debt to the Pumpkin King |
Compare working on art collaboratively with making music. There are amazing solo artists, some who need only an acoustic guitar and their voice, others who can compose entire symphonies—but there are also great bands whose music would not have been quite what it was if not for the particular blend of styles that came from the different members of the groups. Sure you know John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and they are all impressive in their own right, but let’s face it, they would have never been so great on their own as they were together in The Beatles. Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes its just fun working on art with your friends.
-J. Patch
