Collaborate – “to work in partnership”
Three VAAN members explore the meaning of collaboration.

By Laura Young, Trish Tallon-Blanchard and Kaaren Hirschowitz Engel.

Our collaboration began with gallery visits. As artists, we wanted to look at different artwork and dissect it in a painterly way, discussing composition, materials, technique and presentation. We found that as a group of three people, the observations and ideas that we tossed out produced just the right amount of specific feedback to fuel the creative process. After several months, we interspersed our gallery outings with visits to each other¹s studios to share our artwork inspired by our gallery discussions. If we didn’t have time for a studio visit, our excitement about our work often spurred us to meet in the parking lot at Julia Green Elementary, where our children go to school, to share our new work and give and receive critiques.

The next stage of our collaboration was to meet in our studios for a work session. During one session, we each took a piece of paper and began to work, then after fifteen minutes, each person passed her work to the next person, then to the next, until it came full circle to the originator. These exercises were fun and fascinating. Because each of us worked so differently, examining the end result of a process, which took a road we would not have otherwise traveled, was truly enlightening. From these collaborative sessions we each took new ideas and developed them on our own.

Laura Young: “During a session at Kaaren’s studio, I was attracted to the rich patina of Kaaren’s watercolors. One ofthe ways she achieved this feeling of age was by soaking the paper many times, either in water or tea, then adding watercolor in between. At the time, I was using acrylic medium brushed and dripped onto paper to create surface texture prior to drawing with pastels. I began to convert Kaaren’s layering process to my own medium. I built up layers of acrylic medium, and pastel and then sanded the surface to uncover underlying layers. I would sometimes layer and sand 4 or 5 times before the surface had the complexity that I wanted. I don’t think I would have tried this process with pastels without the inspiration of Kaaren’s work. Collaborating has allowed me to push the boundaries ofmy medium.”
h1. Collaborate – “to work in partnership”
Three VAAN members explore the meaning of collaboration.

Kaaren Hirschowitz Engel: “I had been using various objects to stamp images in paint on my watercolor pieces. After seeing Laura’s use of acrylic medium, I was inspired to use it in place of the paint. I stamped an image with the medium, then, after it dried, proceeded with the soaking technique and watercolor pigment. The raised, stamped image resisted color, creating a ghost-like quality. I also added pastel and colored pencils as a result of seeing the effects achieved by Trish and Laura with these media. All of this was incorporated into my series – ‘Ancient Walls’. Our collaboration inspired me to include new media in my work.”

Trish Tallon-Blanchard: “I had been working with colored pencil, pastels and oils. Subject matter floated between figurative and non-representational elements. Pattern, repetition and layering emerged as significant rituals, especially in a recent oil painting with a stamped look. A consistent, but undefined, direction was established. The collaborative studio sessions, in which I could observe and interact with Kaaren and Laura’s techniques, provided clarity of direction and new ways of achieving results.”

[Note: A photograph of Saffron I (seen above) accompanied this article when it first appeared]. The accompanying photograph is a collaborative piece. Laura first stamped and colored the work with pastel, Trish continued with pastel, and Kaaren added watercolor and water-based media. Laura, Kaaren and Trish are currently working on several other collaborative pieces, which will also combine the techniques of each artist.