My experience co-creating artwork

Behind the Scenes on the painting “The City, Too.”

This last fall I did a painting for the “Get on Board” group show at the Center for Contemporary Arts-Abilene, TX.  It was part of a project by the Center’s artist members with the goal of  joining forces to create artwork with board of trustee and staff members at the CCA.  The hope was to create new connections to art, expand our own art experiences, and make a unique show.  I joined up with Jessica Dulle, the executive director of the CCA.  We worked on a piece that was inspired by her nostalgia for downtown Kansas City and her memories there when she was a child.  I posted a photo of the piece on my facebook fan site. 

To be honest, working on a joint piece with an inexperienced painter and trying to meet her vision was more dificult than I had imagined.  I felt creatively frustrated and a bit confused by not being able to keep the painting in the end.  It was also tricky to know how much to invest of myself artistically and how much to let be simplified.

Generally, I paint for satisfaction as well as a living (both of which I’m still working on).   I also get emotionally tied to the work every time I create something.  Of course I don’t mind letting go afterwards if I sell it to someone who loves it, or I choose to give it away.  But because I didn’t feel I had the choice of outcome, I was feeling frustrated during the creative process.  This was stopping up the creative flow.   

Perhaps I can explain it better like this…it was a tiny, itsy bit like a marriage/divorce/custody situation.  We both brought something to the union/creation, and yet all the while I was aware that I would not get custody of our child/creation in the end.  My arms would be left empty.

This may seem a bit melodramatic, but it was true for me.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think of all this until after we’d started the project.  Things like how would I deal with investing a part of myself into a project and balance the demands it required with my own need for artistic autonmy?  Or, how could I best be “T.M.Gand” in a situation of “T.M.Gand with…”?   Perhaps its my naivite or newness to the whole experience that led me to this confusion.  But then again, there were some older, perhaps world-wiser, artists who seemed to know better than to team up with someone else and put their name on the work.   When asked if they planned on particpating, I got emotionally weighted but definite, “no thank you’s.”  Hmmmmm.  I probably should’ve questioned the “hmmmmm” in my gut longer, instead of jumping ahead with both feet.  I tend to get exicted by the prospects of a challenge and doing something new.  I wouldn’t change the outcome, I suppose.  I did find a path to creative happiness in the end.  But it sure was frustrating for a while there.  More on how I overcame this challenge in my next post.  (I’m trying to keep these bite-sized blog posts.)

Thanks for visiting and until next time…toodles,

T.M.Gand

(c) 2010.  All rights reserved, as always. 

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