Creative Collaborations
by Fay Picardi
One of my favorite ways to create is collaboratively. As both an artist and a poet, I delight in
exploring the myriad of possibilities for combining disciplines. Case in point is The Transformations project of several years back where 13 artists and 13 poets worked together to inspire each other and produce
new works for a museum show and book at the Foosaner Art Museum.
This current collaboration is of another type. Let me explain. The whole concept started
when I was given an exceptional work of art by my sister. Originally a gift from her to my mother, the large pot shown below is an early piece by Paul Chaleff, a world renowned ceramicist and teacher whose works are in major museums.
This piece is extraordinary on its own. Perhaps I should
have left it that way. However, I started on this adventure by deciding that it
needed “a little something.” A few Bird of Paradise leaves???
But, NO. I wanted something unique and colorful. Something worthy of being called ART, too.
Kathy Garvey, a fellow Pieces of 8 whom I had met working on Transformations, came to the rescue and volunteered to help me! Kathy suggested we design and print fabric leaves at Spoonflower. (Spoonflower prints fabric for artists, designers and fabricators all over the world.) Plus, she had created artificial butterflies for florists, so she knew the tools and techniques needed. Great!
I wanted the leaves to be spectacular (of course)! Also I wanted them to coordinate with the other beautiful artworks in the room, so I sent
Kathy some inspiration pictures and a color chart.
Kathy took these ideas and photos of three of my favorite
paintings in the room (Hot Horizon and Evening Glow by George Snyder, and L'eau de Nil by Denette Schweikert), put them into Adobe Illustrator and built some swatches from all the colors.
Then, Kathy started filling her sketchbooks with some early ideas
for our leaves.
She did a color test for my approval…shown below with notes.
Next, Kathy tested our idea by creating some leaves in her favorite colors, printing them at
Spoonflower and assembling them. Her production sheet and finished leaves are below.
Beautiful! Now we just had to come up with something that
worked for my living space!
After much deliberation, Kathy presented some "cartoons"
of banana like leaves with each one representing a different artist involved in
the project; poetry for me, cutouts from the paintings by Denette for her,
stripes for George, and a few critters for herself.
The designs were perfect! Kathy worked up one of the
cartoons in Illustrator in full color and we used Photoshop to play other color options. Below is the test production sheet we had printed.
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Next, we each cut, stitched up several prototypes and
discussed the colors that would work.
Kathy created the
remaining three leaves, the largest, based on my input. They are shown below so that you can
see some of the details. Mine is on the top with a Nautilus and lines from my
poetry. Denette's is in the middle with details from her paintings and
Kathy's is on the bottom with a snail, butterfly and bug. Touches
of George Snyder's colors and composition can be seen throughout.
Below is the fabric printed by Spoonflower to their sumptuous fake suede.
Now, for my part: cut, back, sew, turn, arrange!
I first cut the fabric, 
To finish, I sewed, clipped, turned and finished the leaves. After, I wired and covered the stems.
Finally, I arranged the leaves in Paul Chaleff’s pot.
Et,
voila! Our collaborative artistic masterpieces in a master ceramist's pot.
I love them both! Thank you, Kathy!
I love them both! Thank you, Kathy!
Another
of my favorite collaborations was the publication, The Stones Speak. This work presented Cindy Michaud's artwork along with my poems.
Kathy did the extraordinary layout and design for this book. She also edited
and formatted my chapbook, Nana's Sunday Dance, and my novel, Simonetta.
Without Kathy Garvey (on Etsy, on Spoonflower), none of these works would have come to fruition! No wonder I
like collaboration! Thanks again, Kathy.
