{"id":1520,"date":"2016-02-04T14:13:45","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T14:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/?p=1520"},"modified":"2016-02-04T14:13:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T14:13:45","slug":"the-delicate-balance-of-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/the-delicate-balance-of-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Delicate Balance of Collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love jazz and listen to it frequently\u00a0while I’m working. My husband and I recently went down to Brattleboro to attended a concert by the Bobby Broom Trio<\/a> at the Vermont Jazz Center<\/a>.\u00a0 The music was outstanding, and since the venue was relatively intimate, we were near\u00a0to the musicians despite being seated toward the middle of the room. \u00a0I found it fascinating to watch as they eyed each other\u00a0closely, constantly communicating nonverbally. There was magic in the weaving of each musician’s independent voice \/\u00a0ideas in tandem with the others’, so that the weight of individual\u00a0performances flowed between taking precedence, falling back to support another, or melding as a\u00a0group in equally weighted measure. The powerful\u00a0sense of the communication and generosity between them added appreciably to the concert and I left thinking about the strength of collaboration and the delicacy of managing its balance.<\/p>\n

\"The-Bobby-Broom-Trio-Zinc-Bar\"

Dennis Carrol, bass; Bobby Broom, guitar; Makaya McCraven, drums \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 bobbybroom.com<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

The next morning, at the Brattleboro Museum<\/a>, I was pleased to discover\u00a0another stellar instance\u00a0of collaboration, this time visual. In the exhibition “Recovering the Body”<\/a> two large canvases and a third smaller one created by Jon McAuliffe<\/a> and Craig Stockwell<\/a>\u00a0exemplify\u00a0seamless cooperation, joining disparate approaches (McAuliffe paints representationally while Stockwell’s imagery is abstract) in a way that broadens the resulting work, each voice adding to and enriching the other. A\u00a0brief explanation of the interesting way they navigated this blending process can be read\u00a0by following the above link to the exhibit .<\/p>\n

\"McAuliffe:Stockwell\"

Recovering the Body #2<\/strong>, Oil on Canvas 74″ x 58″ \u00a9Jon McAuliffe and Craig Stockwell<\/p><\/div>\n

Two other sets of accomplished collaborators that I have admired for some time are<\/p>\n

Igor and Marina<\/a>,\u00a0who\u00a0masterfully bring together image, surface, space and pattern.\u00a0A visit to the ‘Process’ section of their website contains wonderful images of preparatory drawings.<\/p>\n

\"Igor+Marina\"

Why Bother with Shoes, <\/strong>Diptych,<\/strong>\u00a0 Oil on Canvas, 75\/48″ (191\/122 CM)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a9 Igor & Marina<\/p><\/div>\n

and\u00a0Gayle Fraas and Duncan Slade<\/a>,\u00a0who have worked together creating beautifully painted and stitched pieces for more than 30 years. (My email request for permission to display their images bounced back. Please go to their website to explore their stunning\u00a0work.)<\/p>\n

Listening to the riffs of various musicians in my studio will remind\u00a0me\u00a0of the importance of a shared\u00a0dialogue\u00a0with other artists and the wealth that may result, regardless of whether or not it involves actually working on the same piece.\u00a0And that prompts the question, what means of collaboration can we each find that will push our practices forward?<\/p>\n

Once again, the value of community and the reward of trading\u00a0ideas is underlined. And while the concept of collaboration and group improvisation may not entirely explain what it is about jazz that I find so compelling, it certainly adds to the allure.<\/p>\n

*A special thank you to Igor +\u00a0Marina, Jon McAuliffe and Craig Stockwell for allowing me to use their images in this post.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I love jazz and listen to it frequently\u00a0while I’m working. My husband and I recently went down to Brattleboro to attended a concert by the Bobby Broom Trio at the Vermont Jazz Center.\u00a0 The music was outstanding, and since the venue was relatively intimate, we were near\u00a0to the musicians despite being seated toward the middle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[171,170,174,175,172,173],"class_list":["post-1520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion","tag-bobby-broom-trio","tag-collaboration","tag-craig-stockwell","tag-gayle-fraas-and-duncan-slade","tag-igor-marina","tag-jon-mcauliffe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5kO5z-ow","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1543,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}