Category: Studio Collaboration 3

Aug 05

Interview With Karyn Souza

The mojitos Tina & I shared to celebrate!

Hello friends!

While Tina was here we had the pleasure of getting interviewed by the FABULOUS Karyn Souza! You might remember her from the article she wrote about the Spring Fling at Above Elite Studios. This was the very first interview I  ever had and was a little nervous. From the moment I met Karyn, it was like we were old friends and I was immediately put at ease. Our conversation moved beyond the Spring Fling as our time together wove into the tapestry of our lives, including inspiring stories (she has many) and the importance of sharing our gifts with the world. She appreciated seeing all of the collaborative work Tina & I had been doing and said she would love to interview us another time. You can imagine how absolutely thrilled we were when she agreed to meet with us while Tina was here last week! Can we say BEYOND EXCITED!!! This interview had a similar, easy going vibe and I think Tina felt right at home with Karyn as well. The article comes out in the Chariho Times TODAY!!! and the Narragansett Times TOMORROW!!! I am off to seek out a couple of copies and will let you know how it turns out tomorrow. YIPPEE!!!!

Cheery Smiles & love,

Laura

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Posted in Art Events & Happenings, Press, Studio Collaboration 3

Aug 05

Identity

A joyous day to you!

Some of you may have noticed the snazzy NEW “look” of our blog and might be thinking, why did they go and change their banner again? Didn’t they just create a new one during their last  studio visit?!? Wasn’t their last banner delightful enough? Are they ever happy? Well, at the end of the day although we still like our old banner we just didn’t feel like it truly expressed our work together.

I recently took two wonderful classes, In the Fishbowl with Marisa Haedike and Flying Lessons with Kelly Rae Roberts which opened Tina and I to a conversation about  “branding“ and the importance of having an identifying marker for our work together. This is something we knew we should have but honestly lacked the computer graphic know how to pull it off. Luckily for us Tina stepped up and used her savvy “I’ll figure it out skills” (love that about her) and diligently learned how to navigate Photoshop (which still scares the heck out of me, just so you know). We brainstormed and negotiated for hours and hours discussing composition, deciding on colors, fonts, and even going back to our previous banners and assessing them. It was important for us to include a sense of nostalgia for our friendship, show the distance between us and that we correspond through the mail. We always loved those silly girls from our very first Vision/Revision and decided to make them into a stamp that could be changed from time to time to keep things fresh. The vintage map, postcard and seal all illustrate the space between us and the sentimentality we were looking for. Tina and I are pleased with our choices so far but you never know when we might mix thing up. What do YOU think of our new look?

Much love,
Laura & Tina

Notice the "2" in the flag and how Tina added our names in the seal as well as when we started our correspondence. Isn't she clever? This seal will be made into a real stamp in the future.

Notice that this seal includes our "TWO" locations.

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Posted in Studio Collaboration 3, Tina & Laura In Studio Together

Jul 27

The business side of friendship…

View of Skipper's Dock where we had lunch and docked the boat. It was a bumpy ride over, but FUN!

Dear Friends, We sit on Laura’s back porch looking over our To-Do list and wishing we had just one more day to do it all.  We seem to always have more ideas than we do time.  Really, our favorite moments on visits like these are when we are in the studio creating artwork and dreaming up our next collaborative project.  The business of selling our work, marketing what we do, making contacts for teaching and speaking engagements can really bog us down.  We needed to remind ourselves today on the ride back from Laura’s studio that the business side is only a small piece to this important work we are doing together.  Gently taking care of the wonderful friendship we have fostered over the past four years is our primary concern.  Our friendship is what has allowed us to come this far in our work and continues to inspire us to continue pushing our work to be better.  We want to not only be better artists, but better people having known one another.

We are all lucky if we find one true friend in this life time.  We are charting unknown territory as we travel along this road to making our work into a business and want to thank you all for coming along with us.

Shells and rocks Tina collected while we were at the beach at Pine Island

We have many posts to come in the next few weeks about all the business decisions, creative jumps, celebrations of completed work, and projects planned for this coming year.  For now we will leave you with some pictures of our “play” time while in Connecticut.

Two Friends.

Two Artists.

Two Entrepreneurs.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this  meeting that a new world is born.”
 – Anais Nin

Cheers!

Tina & Laura

Here we are getting ready to go shopping in the Borough after a lovely lunch

Studio work -> Tina working on our last page to the Book Exchange

Laura's turn to work on the Book Exchange...It is now complete and we will share more soon.

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Posted in Studio Collaboration 3, The Journey, quotes

Jul 23

Studio Collaboration 3

Laura & Tina in Providence

Yesterday marked the beginning of Laura and Tina’s third studio collaboration. Tina arrived in Providence Rhode Island and we quickly went for a bite to eat at Cafe Nuovo, a lovely restaurant along the river. It was the perfect place to catch up after Tina’s long flight. Both the food and service were fantastic.

View of Cafe Nuovo from the other side of the river

Catching up and planning our To-Do list we embarked on a walk in the city to see some art.  Our first stop was at the Rhode Island School of Design Art Museum.  We walked into a gallery to find a “Soundsuit” by Nick Cave.  Tina did a post on this artist’s exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston SC.  You may find that post HERE.  We thought that was an interesting connection between our art communities.

Another interesting exhibit we saw was in an alternative space in the city- store front windows.  Here is a link to the participating artists and more information on this clever idea: Providence Art Windows.  We responded to two of the artists and thought we would highlight them below.

Jenine Bresner, “Why are we fighting when we’re on the same team?”

Jenine Bressner, Providence Art Window

About the Work
I’m frustrated by the inescapable theme of “Humans vs. Nature.” To tolerate it, I have to find humor in the inanity of this idea, and its failure to recognize humans as nature. Though it might be possible for people or other animals to survive in mostly- synthesized environs, such a state of existence would be an artificial life.

The most inspiring works I’ve witnessed have all been naturally- occurring ones. I aim to make things that reflect my respect and awe for the natural world, my quiet sadness for its/ our uncertain future, and the irony of humans trying to control and recreate nature itself in artwork that can only strive to be as beautiful as authentic life.

About the Artist
Jenine Bressner wants to see things she has never seen before. She aims to satisfy this wish by drawing with glass rods in a torch flame, laser cutting textiles, and by working in other various media. She studied glass at RISD and Digital Fabrication at AS220, through MIT.

Jenine was awarded RISCA’s Fellowship of Craft in 2009 and is currently preparing for a show next year at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. To learn more about Jenine, please go to jenine.net.

Our reflection in the installation

Heather Freedman & Greg Kozatek “Habitat Becomes You”

We really responded to this collaboratively made installation so we took the liberty to include ourselves in the reflection of the window!

About the Work

Shelter is a common theme, as well as necessity, shared by all lifeforms. Architecture peppers our planet, taking the form of nests, cocoons, hives, apartment complexes and high-rises. As humans, we find comfort in the idea of home. It is a place to retreat to, and a place to start out from. We rest, we reload. Sometimes, after we’ve done all the growing we can do in one place, we get pushed out of the nest. We must move forward towards new opportunities for growth. All aspects of ourselves, as well as our habitats, experience the unavoidable change found in moving through the stages of life. Opened cocoons speak of a stage of life completed. They are left behind as time moves on, and serve as beautiful sculptural reminders of time past. A sense of history, as well as future, is created.

About the Artists

Growing up in the midwest, Heather Freedman relocated to Providence to attend Rhode Island School of Design. Graduating in June with a BFA in Illustration, Heather’s work explores themes in nature and movement. She enjoys experimenting with a variety of 2D and 3D media. A background and continued interest in classical dance adds an aspect of performance to her work. Heather is currently serving a summer term at CityArts with AmeriCorps, where she is teaching a creative movement class and is enjoying sharing art with young people. Heather loves trees, dancing, and a leisurely coffee break.

Greg Kozatek was born and raised in Apple Valley Rhode Island, where he consequently spent most of his childhood picking apples. Greg attended Smithfield High School and now a graduate of the Illustration Department from the Rhode Island School of Design, Greg hopes to work as a part of a creative design/production team to create work for film, television and theater.

Thank you for sharing our adventures. More to come!

Cheery Smiles,
Laura & Tina

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Posted in Studio Collaboration 3

Jul 22

0 More Days…A Visit At Last

Traveling from South Carolina to Connecticut

Today we meet up in Providence RI where Tina flies in around noon.  Our plan is to visit some galleries, eat lunch, and enjoy the city together.  It is inevitable when we visit another city with the numerous talented artists there, that some sort of creative idea plants a seed.  We always enjoy being inspired by fellow creatives!  Our “Working Table” was inspired by seeing Gabriel Orozco’s work at the Museum of Modern Art last time we were together.  Check out the link for the post about that.

We plan to visit a few of these art venues and will let you know what we thought with a post tomorrow or later tonight.  Click on the pictures for a link to these websites.

Thanks for following our travels together.  Talk with you later!

Tina and Laura

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Posted in Art Events & Happenings, Studio Collaboration 3

Jul 21

1 More Day…

Laura's backyard

…until Tina arrives in CT and we can hardly stand the wait! We have been talking about how some things in our creative life are better served when we are together. Putting the finishing touches on our Etsy shop is one of them. For those of you who don’t know what Etsy is, it is an online shop for all things handmade. Two of Laura’s favorite shops are her friend Michelle Dyson’s fun and funky fiber work and  Lisa Occhipinti’s mixed media work (Lisa also has a beautifully written BLOG~very inspiring!). We decided to open a shop to share what we are creating (and mama have we been creating!) as well as a way to support our work together. It is our hope that the work we sell on our Etsy site we will allow us to save enough money to travel to each other at least once every season. Although we do work well when we are apart we are curious as to what kind of MAGIC we could create if we are together more often.

Our time together feeds both our individual art practices as well as our collaborative work and friendship. We would like to share how this translates into our work. It will also allow us funding for future residencies, provide materials and shipping of our work as well as create classes & workshops for our communities.  What you can expect to find when the shop opens is original collaborative artwork, new postcard size art with a creative spin on our first correspondence and drawing exchange, as well as our individual artwork. During Tina’s stay we will be fine tuning our fun packaging, descriptions, banner, and hopefully creating new work to WOW you with. Who knows, there just might be an extra special treat for one of YOU lovely readers so stay tuned! We would love to hear what your favorite Etsy sites are and why you are drawn to them. Do you have any ideas for creative shipping? What kind of a package would you like to receive? We would love it if you shared in the comments below so others may benefit from your experience. Thanks!

Laura & Tina

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Posted in Art Events & Happenings, Studio Collaboration 3

Jul 20

2 More Days….

until our THIRD studio collaboration.  So, now that you know what we have planned for the next few weeks from our blog post yesterday, today we want to talk about a two year project that is coming to completion; The Collaborative Book Exchange.  Here are a few pictures if you are not familiar with this enduring project….

This project began after we asked how we could make our postcard art (that we had been exchanging for a year and a half previously) into a more cohesive body of artwork.  After brainstorming we settled on exchanging an empty sketchbook through the mail.  Our only rule is that we would leave a small image, text, or object on the following page for the other person.  One would then pick up on this small beginning and create a new page.  We never anticipated this project lasting for years.  It is a wonderful chronicle of our time together (or apart we should say) .

After we complete this last page together we will be looking at the whole book for common themes, threads of thought (often we spoke of geographical place), images that were similar, different or reoccuring, color and composition choices we made page to page, and our overall assessment of this collaborative experience.

Come along on the journey through two years!

Tina & Laura

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Posted in Art Events & Happenings, Studio Collaboration 3, The Journey

Jul 19

3 More Days…

until we are together in Connecticut!  It has been six months since our last studio visit.   In our last studio visit (Which we titled Studio Collaboration 2), we created a new blog format, visited New York city (which inspired our series of the Working Table), wrote our first newsletter, co-created our blog banner at the top of our blog, and presented our first FREE giveaway…not to mention having a great time!

You think that is a lot squeezed into five days wait until you hear what we have planned this time!

This visit we have plans to visit galleries in Providence RI, re-create an all new newsletter (which you without-a-doubt will need to subscribe to on the right side of this message), design and open an Etsy Shop with numerous hand-crafted L2T artworks, complete and celebrate our collaborative BOOK project, begin a new collaborative project inspired by Jennifer Bartlett, as well as have a few mojitos in the Connecticut sunshine!

Each day we will write a blog post at night reviewing our events and discoveries so check in with us daily for the next few weeks.

Laura & Tina

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Posted in Studio Collaboration 3, The Journey