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My studio smells like dead fish.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of working more collaboratively with Clover on this project. For now that’s where the strength seems to be, where my focus has gone. I’ve been itching to make some new pieces with this in mind. I knew that I wanted the creative balance to be more even, 50/50, if that was possible. But that is a tall order when you conspirator is 5. But I had an idea.
We’re collectors. We collect various treasures we find out on our journeys. Sand, shells, feathers, rocks, driftwood, pinecones, dead bugs. It’s a nice way to bring a little outside to the inside. The stuff is all over our house, it’s great. It’s simple and earthy. My idea was to have both of us to go out and collect treasures, then bring them back to the studio and utilize them in some way. This particular day we gathered a bunch of beach goods - crab legs, lobster claws, skate egg cases, shells - and headed home, stink in tow. Back at the studio I taped a piece of light gray paper to the floor and set up the lights and camera. I drew a box for Clover to work within and handed her the treasures one at a time from our smelly Dunkin Donuts bag. I told her to lay them out in the box and make a design or sculpture. I told her to create something out of our treasures, and that when she was done I would photograph it. As I handed each piece to her we would chat about which side of a claw was better, which color we liked. Sometimes we were in agreement, she always had the final say. She talked about why she put each piece the way she did. She explained that all the claws had to face to the left. It was important. It was a bit of organized chaos. The process was organic and made sense. Collecting treasures is something we already do outside of the studio, so it made sense for me to bring that inside, to capitalize on our established routine. This was a way for us to document the performative aspect of our collecting process as well as the sculptural aspect of her layout. It was part performance, part sculpture, and part photograph, 100% collaboration. It’s important for me to give her control, to see her hand in it. More than just an expression or stance, it is the physical manifestation of her thoughts and ideas. I could see that she was taking it serious and her brain hard at work. She loved it, I loved it. It was fun.
