Looking forward to working with you 😁

https://archive.artic.edu/stieglitz/portraits-of-georgia-okeeffe/

Georgia O’Keeffe

The theory of structuralism caught my eye becaue it talked about binaries in art, which means that this theory interprets elements in oposing them. For example, dark vs light meaning that there is no light if there is no dark, that we cannot understand what dark is if we dot know what light is.

I kept thinking about our little project while listening to that.

Then I taked to ChatGTP about the practical application of this theory in art and it have me an idea I would like to share with you. It might be useful for our project.

ChatGTP enlightened me on different opposites, not just dark and light and suggested a book could follow a pattern of images where on each opening of the book shows both of the opposites.

I was thinking of our leporello and was thinking that this could work quite well in a collaboration where one person puts up an image and the other person adds something that they see as opposite to the original image. The author of the first image does not have to say what the opposite is about, it is a random image. The other person has to come up with the interpretation themselves.

!!!! We do not HAVE TO make any work!!!! We just scroll through our camera rolls on our phones and find images of either our paintings or other work or photographs we have already taken.!!!!

After this port I will share some ideas for opposites as generated by our collaboration partner ChatGTP. :) It is just source of ideas and information, we are not copying any texts or images.

Even though we did not agree on a colour scheme, I kind of like the black and white theme. In this image the textures come out nicer in B&W, but it doesn't mean the whole book has to be like that.

• painter, photographer, creative artist currently into text/artbooks/zines

• Short on time

• Make WhatsApp and padlet

• Put on padlet anything we think relevant to light/dark theme from our own interests

First zoom one week later:

• Short on time, keep this feasible

• Develop light/dark theme into binary opposites

• Pick on the idea of folding booklet (leporello) with openings or spreads with two facing pages

• Develop this as prompt and response, in some way opposing the prompt, a binary, but not rigid, an interpretation

• Maybe light/dark is monochrome greyscale image

• Work out scheme so each person posts two prompts and two responses - six openings or double page spreads each for a prompt and response

• Perhaps an interconnecting theme for successive prompts, but not necessarily, otherwise time delay waiting for each prompt before posting next

• No work by others, own work only (except can include excerpts e.g. text from poems)

• Mainly work from our archives for speed.

• At end think through front and back pages and any text running through the whole book.

I also threw in a very fast oil painting on the same theme using up old paint on the palette and daubed on / scraped off / moved with a plastic card. But I propose the collage as my response for leporello.

Baiba are you putting this into the leporello format? Or shall we each do this ourselves?

And now we need to think about a cover, and whether the image speak for themselves or we make a running text through them.

BY ADRIENNE RICH

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled

this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light—

ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it's necessary

to talk about trees.

Copyright Credit: Adrienne Rich, "What Kind of Times are These" from Collected Poems: 1950-2012. Copyright © 2016 by The Adrienne Rich Literary Trust.  Copyright © 1995 Adrienne Rich. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc..

Hi everyone, 

Bryan and I hope you are having fun with your collaborations, and we're really looking forward to seeing what you've come up with on Saturday morning. 

As you know, in addition to looking at your creative work in this next session, we will dig into how to analyse the collaborative process. We have attached some prompts and ideas to help guide this reflection. You can do this together, but it might be revealing to do it separately. Try to be honest, but keep it respectful, especially if there has been any tension.

It might be that not everything in the notes is relevant to you or your group, or that you find one method more effective than another. We're not looking for you to follow up on every suggestion. Pick your way through the slides and respond to what you find useful or pertinent. You might also want to go back to the categories proposed in the first session or refer to the materials you've discovered. 

We won't have time to discuss everything on Saturday, but we hope these notes will provide a good starting point as you review this experience and reflect on how it will feed into your ongoing practice.

Please let me know if you have any questions. 

out of comfort zone

team very dynamic

got together

agreed on process

each contributed in own way

huge pride in what we achieved

true collaboration

alliance

memorable experience

no fear of doing collaboration again

learning process

shows what can be achieved

light&dark and each point of view

visual ideas together

binary opposites

prompts & opposites

explore artistic collaboration

what can we achieve in a short period of time

learning smth about each other

collaboration for future

Each contributed

Abstract topic - light and dark

Creating new work together

Tells an idea

Prompts/opposites

Prompts/responses

Deeper meaning to find opposites

Enjoy

See more in pictures

Interesting

Seeing each other

Creating something

It was a memorable experience. I’d say, a source of pride,

Out of our comfort zone, made an alliance,

The photographer, the painter, the does everything creative artist,

The family and the best friend.

So, “Light and Dark”. Abstract. Could mean literally anything.

Morality? The Cosmos? Shadow and tone.

A new concept, a story winding through opposites,

The leporello, each opening a prompt and response.

We cut our cloth: lacking time, we mostly used archives.

Dynamic, six days, six starters, six answering images.

To find a response, we looked more closely at what was shown,

Went unmapped beyond the prompting artist’s intent.

Quick fire summary. One word. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. 

A tangible result: printed, a small display in another land.

1. print the pages one-sided ( I printed on regular 80g paper, worked perfectly!)

2. cut them along the stipple line, but leave the edge of the page on one of the joining pieces for overlap!

3. glue the strips together

4. fold creating an accordeon

5. sit back and enjoy our art! :)