Collaboration: Joining Two Minds & Spirits

Lapse, 1986, Gina Fiedel, Oil/Canvas, 46×70″

Read the interview.

Exploding Ideas

Every so often, we have the privilege to unite our own creative impetus to that of another person’s. When that happens, as it does in a collaboration, it has the potential to be an explosion of ideas and progressive thinking. Alchemy and magic are given a chance to thrive. The catalysts that each provides stimulates a creation that is simply much larger than the sum of its parts.

It is particularly magical when you get to do this with someone whose work you admire and whose mind is a true inspiration to your own. I had that marvelous opportunity for this with +Teodora Petkova recently. She invited me to participate in her new blog series “Dialogues” in which she creates collaborative conversations with people who interest her in the form of an interview. I found it to be a transformative experience unlike any other I’ve known, so I thought it would make good sense to steer you towards it using this blog post as an introduction of sorts.

The Fanciful and The Pragmatic

Pondering the questions that Teodora asked and the rhythms that pulsed in me during the process of constructing my responses was a living parallel to the tensions I feel of the me who is an artist and the me who is living in business. The dichotomy.

Throughout my life, in one circumstance after another, I’ve repeatedly declared the neat fit of the two and the ways in which they go together.

This has been from the time I was a child in my parent’s house where they were conducting business (a creative arts school) as artists (dancer & composer) themselves and I was a perpetual witness as well as participant.

I have also blanched at the impossible nature of fitting them together like a puzzle that I should understand. But somehow, it just ends up coming naturally. And continues to come naturally time after time.

As the business world turns towards personalization, trust, relationships and transparency I feel a sense of place and rightness that I haven’t previously.

Read the interview.

Magpie, 14×16″, Oil/Wood, 2012

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