“You hear more when you look, and you look more when you hear” - Artists Discussing Collaboration
Friday, March 12th, 2010 by Chelsea Richardson
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Yesterday, March 11, 2010, I was pleased to attend a panel discussion moderated by our own Lucinda Dugger. The discussion, titled Cross-Discipline Collaboration: How Writers and Artists are Working Together to Push Boundaries and Engage the Public, was part of Washington DC’s Split This Rock Poetry Festival. It explored questions about the collaborative process and how artists of different disciplines working together can help to create a broader dialogue with the public.
As a simple example of how a group of strangers can begin to collaborate, Lucinda had everyone in the room look at a painting, and then write down a single line of poetry based on what they saw. After everyone had written their lines on separate index cards, we went around the room and read them as one long piece.
It was interesting to hear all of the different themes and ideas that this one painting was able to elicit from everyone. It was equally as interesting to hear the ideas strung together into something larger. By the end of the exercise, I think everyone in the room started to see the painting in new and unexpected ways. As Lucinda pointed out, the image inspired all of these words, which in turn inspired ideas for many more images.
This got me thinking about the artistic process in general. I was recently discussing a film I had seen and been disappointed in with a friend. My friend stated that she felt the lead actor in the film (someone we had always admired) was starting to play the same character over and over. I realized that this actor had been working almost exclusively with the same director and group of actors for almost twenty years. I commented to my friend that typically, when working with new directors, a new crew, new co-stars, an actor is continually adding new tricks to their process. Every new gig is a learning experience. It occurred to me that if this actor has been working with the same people for twenty years, it isn’t all that surprising that the work is beginning to feel familiar and even repetitive.
As discussed in this panel, branching out and participating in collaborative work not only has the ability to enhance one’s process and inspire their creative juices in new ways, but also has the ability to enrich the art forms themselves. It furthermore allows artists to break into new audiences and reach a much broader population with their messages.
Seeing such a diverse group of artists sitting in a room and discussing the enrichment of the arts and the effectiveness of the arts as a tool for social change really resonated with me as a part of the Copyright Alliance team. Cross-discipline collaboration for the betterment of the arts as a whole is something the Copyright Alliance strives to make a reality every day.
I found the panel to be extremely enjoyable, informative, and poignant. If you are an artist in the Washington DC area, I would highly recommend participating in the Split this Rock festival, as well as stepping out of your comfort zone and trying some unexpected collaboration! As someone at the panel said yesterday, “You hear more when you look, and you look more when you hear”.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
collaboration and creativity, depending on who and what an artist collaborates with is very important and a good thing be the thing about an actor or artist working with the same director, crew, and or producers for a long periord of time build and nurture chemistry. alot of times artist styles, body of work or collabos seem to look the same is 1) lack of growth, 2) no insight 3) who you working with. If your good at what you do, you wont worry about feeling familiar or repetitive. If your art is good it will change everything every time you put out new material, every painting will invoke a different emotion. Thats if you have growth, no growth can cause familiarity or repetitive. Thats a style looking for a way out but cant find it. So what you see and hear is an attempt at freedom, but coming up short, Thats until the right collaboration comes along, then you build from there, you get chemistry, and you add to that. Artist have to protect their creativity, you cant just collab with anything and anybody, the craft is amazing! as a multimedia artist insperation can come from anywhere, and with the coypright laws gowing through this massive reconstruction, once you put it out there, its everybodys grab, so a phobea is festering about sharing/leaking and getting no credit, eveything we post, write, paint, photograph, etc has the potiental to make a differance, I am collaborating with you right now as I post this, and everything I write is a form of art, rhym or poem, its just my style of communicating when I write, so I share this, but I gotta copyright it too, no if I get a response………… “You hear more when you look, and you look more when you hear”.
March 16th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Cross-discipline collaboration is equally important for the copyright attorney. We have our boilerplate contracts and our checklists for ensuring that our clients’ rights are protected, but I find that it’s just as important to follow what the various arts communities have identified as areas that need more protection, less protection, or perhaps even different kinds of protection. I am continually learning from my clients, and I hope that I am able to offer them something of value beyond my services.