Collaborating with Brooks

My friend Brooks does amazing work with mixed media collage. Her pieces all tell a story, which I love. I've been finding that my quilts recently tell stories too. We have connected with each other's work for a long time. Recently, after she saw my quilt Urban Emergence, she made this collage in response...

  Look at the two pieces side by side....

We got together on zoom and chatted about collaborative work we could do. Brooks told me all about her art studio she is preparing to build on their property. She even built a 3d model to share with the architect. I was so intrigued by her plans....

 We decided to each make a piece that reflects her dreams for her studio. We talked for a long time about the plans, set a color palette and went to work. Although we had planned to work separately and not share until we were finished, we found ourselves texting and sharing photos along the way. Our pieces ended up more literal and alike than we had originally planned.

 I love the colorful circles bursting from the roof of the studio, representing all of the wonderful creative ideas happening inside. At first, my circles looked like the balloons from the movie Up, lifting the studio into the sky, hahaha! I worked at it and I think i finally got it right.

Brooks and I have another collaboration in the works. We are working off of some photographs I shared with her. This time, we really plan to keep our work to ourselves until we are finished. I hope we can stick to the plan! This is a real learning process. I can't wait to share our next project with you!