Thursday, July 15, 2010

Talk About :: Collaboration


It's "Talk About" time again for the Handmade Division. Each month the members of our group blog about a given topic. This month's topic question: "Is there an artist you'd love to collaborate with? What would you like to create?"

I've mentioned in a previous post collaborating with my friend, Julia. Another artist I'd like to collaborate with is my husband. Mark is a potter. (See his fantastic work above!) I'd love to carve my lettering and designs into some collaborative pieces. I think it would be amazingly fun to design and create pottery pieces together. I remember when we first met being intrigued that he was a potter since I'd always thought I'd enjoy learning to work with clay. While we were dating, Mark taught me to throw on his pottery wheel and we had such fun together in his pottery studio. We had intended to do more of it, but somehow we haven't. We're busy with our own work and projects, and some of the plans we had envisioned together have been sidetracked.

We do collaborate well. We've worked on stained glass projects together, we cook together, and we've enjoyed taking many creative classes together. This topic is a fantastic reminder to reevaluate our creative plans and goals as a couple and maybe even spend some time together in the pottery studio again.



These are the first two pottery pieces I made, with assistance and and instruction from Mark. Perhaps the next time I post about pottery it will be to show you the results of our collaborative efforts.

Be sure to take a look at the blogs of other Handmade Division members to see what they have to say about the topic of artistic collaboration:

Andes Cruz - http://andescruz.wordpress.com/
ceeb wassermann aka howlindoggie:
http://mettledesignstudio.blogspot.com/
Rickson Jewellery -
http://www.ricksonart.blogspot.com/
Purified -
http://purifiedart.blogspot.com/
Susan Moloney - http://susarto.blogspot.com/
nanopod: Hybrid Studio -
http://nanopod.wordpress.com/

Friday, July 2, 2010

Artisans Collective :: Team Challenge


I belong to a diverse and talented group of Etsy artists, the Artisans Collective. Members have the opportunity to participate in "team challenges"; a theme is chosen and those participating each create a piece inspired by the theme. Our latest challenge theme is Bees. For this challenge, I created a necklace featuring a bee that I designed and hand cut from a sheet of sterling silver with my jeweler's hand saw. It's always so much fun (and inspiring!) to see what others come up with for these challenges. Take a look at our team blog to see the wonderful bee-themed creations of other Artisans Collective members. Be sure to check out our new team website too!