Working Together

I like to work collaboratively with artists of different backgrounds when given the opportunity. It allows me to approach a project in a new way and to directly respond to what someone else is doing in their work. This informs my own work and furthers my ability to convey what I am trying to by forcing me to look at the process of artmaking and at what I am creating anew.

Different artists collaborate in different ways. Some prefer to jointly develop a project, planning and working through every detail together. Others prefer to divvy up different tasks so that each person can work on his/her own, assembling the parts together into a whole at the end. I have been known to do either, although my preference when working with others is to experiment.

Often when working alone, I tend to have a focused vision of what I will create and then I follow that, whereas when I am working collaboratively I prefer to play around with materials, see how the work develops itself and experiment with combining processes and results together. In this, I have been known to either work with my partner/team or to work in our separate studios. I find that this depends a lot on the materials/people involved.

If you have never worked collaboratively, I would recommend trying it. Some artists love it and thrive off of the sharing of ideas and visions, while others hate it and have a hard time working through their differences and scheduling conflicts. It depends a lot on your working style, but it is well worth doing, at least once.