Collaboration

Part of my training as a scientist was to learn the value of collaborative work in research and writing. It's not only encouraged, it's expected. Although it is easy to understand that an individual's artwork is certainly influenced by the integration and interpretation of many of the creative stimuli to which he/she is exposed by viewing the works of others; explicit collaboration is perhaps more uncommon in the creation of visual artworks (music might be an entirely different issue). Anyway, this piece is what I would consider to be a truly collaborative work by two artist -- me and my sister-in-law, Sharon Durr-Anayiotos. Sharon received her BFA in paper-making and does beautiful paper work as well as large scale abstract oil and acrylic paintings. Last Thanksgiving she participated in one of our "dinner and a collage" events. She loved it! She brought many pieces of her hand-made paper to use as collage elements. One of the pieces she brought was actually a rough collage of various pieces of paper that I then used as the "base" for the piece I present here. Her nickname is "Sharwinty" and so that is what I am calling the piece. As you may be able to tell from my work, I tend to have a "foreground emphasis" with some neglect of background. Sharon's beautiful paper work provided not only a background for me, but a short lesson to me in creation of a useful background. I thank Sharon for her collaboration on this work (actually, she will be seeing it for the first time on this blog as well ;-)
Enjoy!