Book Collaboration: Abstractions
(*Tina Hirsig’s Cyanotype on the left inspired these two pieces)
I often like to push myself with my art which is why I love collaborating with other artists. I’ve had an ongoing side/passion project for the past 15 years with my friend and fellow artist, Tina Hirsig. It’s work that gets me out of my comfort zone and pushes me in new directions. We have a website that hosts all of our past projects which you can see over at LauraTWOTina.
At the beginning of this year, we started our second book collaboration. Tina started the book with a letter and a piece of her art which I then responded to visually as well as with a letter back to her. There are no rules to our project other than that, just the ebb and flow of the creative process. Sometimes it’s the art that inspires the next piece for the book and sometimes it’s the writing. We allow ourselves to feed off each other’s work, experiment, and go deeper into areas that interest us.
first layers
I ended up with two pieces for the book this time around. These are the first layers of this painting which I then painted over. This painting, although not perfect felt loose and free to me, like the abstract below.
loose & free
This is the second piece for the book. It has lots of layers and the colors make it feel so alive and happy.
My letter to Tina…
Dear Tina,
I loved hearing about your cyanotypes. I haven’t made one since I was teaching elementary school art. They always felt like magic and the kids loved them.
I too admire adults that can make marks fearlessly like your students. This fearlessness, trust, and being in the moment is something that I feel really drawn to explore right now, yet feel such resistance. I think if I’m able to move past this I will have real growth within my work. All I know is that I feel most joyous when I allow myself to paint freely with no agenda. Then my mind kicks in and I end up painting over everything, losing that aliveness and joy that I initially felt. Curious why I keep doing this I’ve been documenting the thoughts that bubble up while I’m painting so I can question them. It’s interesting how my mind is so conditioned from all my years of schooling to revert back to thoughts of “I should be drawing & painting more realistically.” I know how to draw this way yet I know in my heart it doesn’t feel true to me.
I’ve included two paintings to share a bit of my process. The first one started off very free with loose contour line drawings of some of the foliage in one of my posies. It started off with the hot colors and then painted and drew over it several times. For the second painting, I just allowed what wanted to flow through me come out. It felt much more free. Can you notice the difference?
They are cut up because I was trying to mimic your fragmented piece in some way. I cut them up first but painted them as one painting with the intention of fragmenting them later. I didn’t like how they looked so I taped and glued them back together. I like the abstract one much better but thought the leaves of the other painting related better to your piece so I included them both. I feel like I’m in a “Trust the Process” place like we learned at Goddard. We’ll see if I can welcome this new/old journey of a “beginner’s mind.”
Love you!
Laura
P.S. I glued my envelope together with YES glue that I’ve had for at least 8 years! I loved the reminder of our trip to the American Visionary Museum. We did see some interesting art while we were there. Can’t wait to see art with you again. We always learn so much together.
A little peek at the book…
If you want to follow our journey and see the evolution of this project follow on Instagram.
We’ll look forward to seeing you!
