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Trenton ReynoldsIt is Saturday, February 18th, 2017. This is Room in the Trees, a podcast about living the creative life, making artwork and having great conversations. The following was recorded on February 16, 2016. This is episode 35, Collaboration. Room in the Trees is hosted by Sabrina Harrison and me, Trent Reynolds. Show notes, including pictures, links, video, and more for every episode can be found at roominthetrees.com, and there are definitely some you will want to check out. for today's episode. If you like this podcast, please consider showing your support. You can become a subscribing patron at patreon.com forward slash room and you can rate us or write a review on iTunes, which helps us reach a bigger audience. It is probably easiest to do that in iTunes on your desktop or laptop computer. using the link roominthetrees.com forward slash iTunes. I am so pleased with the episode we have for you today. It was a great pleasure to welcome Patrice Dworkin and Jackie Leishman to Room in the Trees this week. They are both fantastic artists independently, and I'm so happy to be able to do this with them. But today we will mostly be discussing their ongoing collaborative artwork, which they exhibit under the name The Fourth Artist. And here it is.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI loved your website and what you guys have done. It was really exciting when you sent it.
Jackie Leishmanto me. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. That means a lot. I love your work. I've been a fan for a very long time.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh. How did you come upon it?
Jackie LeishmanYou know, okay, so I think I was in anthropology in San Francisco. This was, you know, like almost 20 years ago no like 15 and so I became obsessed and I actually met you I figured out trains and buses and everything to go to something you're holding over in Oakland you used to have a space there I don't know this was yeah okay so I went and to go and see your work in person and meet you and It was so fantastic.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, I love that we've met already. That's great. We have.
Jackie LeishmanWe have met. And we've actually met at Trent's place as well. Yeah, that's right. Okay.
Yes.
Patrice DworkinSo I'm new to your work, Sabrina, and so delighted to see it. And I have to tell you guys, this week I was driving to a bookbinding class at Otis. from my home in the palisades and the traffic was so bad that i tried like a different route and got lost and gridlocked but i was listening to your podcast and i was listening to the episode called leather weather oh my favorite so i was learning so much about sabrina via her bicycle ride to the thrift shop. Yes. That's a great story. That was such a funny, that was so funny.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's incredible. I listened to that story and I laughed right along with it at the same pace.
Patrice DworkinI didn't have to visualize it. Well, it was really a saving grace in the light of being lost and in gridlock traffic in Venice. Oh, I'm glad we could provide a little. Did you laugh? Did you laugh? Yeah, and believe me, I was not in the mood to laugh at the time. So, good job.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI used those saddlebags today on my bike back with full of sweet potatoes. no more apples oh i actually did i went for the i kind of took a break i pulled off the apple bandwagon and got heavily heavily into sweet potatoes i must have bought oh i bought like 30 of them like less than a week ago i ate them all
Trenton Reynoldswow but anyway do you have do you have an average cycle for foods like what yeah how long can you
Sabrina Ward Harrisonhandle before you get burnt out oh burnout on the food yeah i've been going pretty strong now for about seven or eight months oh wow well yeah and i have always been a big fan of sweet potatoes. I think I wrote about them. I mentioned them in Spilling Open. Sweet potato with honey. Yes. So. That's fantastic. Anyways. Well, this is fun. And Patrice, I really like your haircut. Oh, thank you so much. I love the video. And what I really loved, what you started off saying in that Daphne, is it from? pronouncing it right? Daphne. Daphne, yeah. Yeah. When you said really what led you to collaborate was really solving problems with your own work.
Mm-hmm. That was...
Trenton ReynoldsSolving problems with your own work, was that through conversation and studio visits? You know, you just found that the three of you communicated well together and that you're able to help each other?
Patrice DworkinYou know, we met through the L.A. Art Association and the original structure that we were in was a critique group.
Jackie LeishmanIt was a very unique situation because it was all women, 12 of them. Go ahead, Patrice.
Patrice DworkinSo we would meet monthly. And I don't know, at that time, Jackie, were we still going from studio to studio or had we established ourselves at my studio? when that group started to meet. The first round, I think we visited all 12 studios.
Jackie LeishmanYeah, we went from place to place each month, visited someone else's and talked about their work. And then we decided after the 12-month critique re-evaluate, that it's supposed to end we decided to keep it going but as the years went by people would fall away and eventually we were left with five people and we decided we wanted to start working together and tried it out and that one did not work that five was too many and very different personalities and So there was three that we, there was one other, but it's Patrice and I, and we decided, "Well, we'll stay doing this 'cause we have an affinity in our aesthetics and way of working." And we did that for the Daphne project and then that ended. And so Patrice and I are now, we're still going on. So it's been a long process of kind of finding eventually what has sustainability in this collaboration.
Patrice DworkinBut to circle back to your original question, Sabrina, Sabrina, we still use each other as sounding boards for our own work. It's very much a part of our relationship as fellow artists, where every time we get together for the collaboration, there's always an element of, can we just take a half an hour and look at what I've been doing over the past several weeks? I'd really like your feedback. It's so it's it's it's remained an important part of our understanding of each other
Trenton ReynoldsI'm curious to hear if there's a certain amount of accountability built into that as well like do you use each other as a way to Just motivate yourself to to keep producing or is that not really a part of it?
Jackie LeishmanI think we're pretty self-motivated. I would say we're pretty self-motivated. But it's motivating in the sense of what we're willing to do for the collaboration is, I know I need to show up because Patrice is going to show up. And so we both put our best efforts forth because we know the other person expects that of us. So it's more that shows up in the collaboration. Our own work is kind of its own journey, but we're pretty motivated within it. So we don't need anybody to say, "Aren't you still working?" You know, that kind of thing.
Patrice Dworkin- And the flip side of that is when I come to a screeching halt on something that I'm working on independently, Jackie's the first person I'm gonna call. to get her insight on what might be happening with me and how I might untangle myself. And also if something wonderful happens, you know, because our work is so solitary, you like to share that with somebody with whom you don't have to explain it from square one. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. really good point.
Jackie LeishmanWell, also, Patrice, it's also because we've known each other for over eight years now. There's a history. It's not even like talking to just another artist. You know, we've been in each other's life pretty, you know, consistently and... so that she knows what my work has been doing for eight years and can see, like, oh, that's a departure. Or, you know, you always do that. You always get, you know, hit the wall and don't know what to do, and then you break through. Like, don't worry. You know, those kinds of things. Oh, that again. You know, like, oh, yeah, every few months, here we are, you know.
Patrice DworkinIt's true. And then also for somebody whose opinion you trust, In a long trajectory as an artist, you know how you tend to cycle back to themes that are essential to you? To have another artist who sees that, who says, "Oh, that reminds me of that thing you did "in 2002 that had the circles." And you may not even see it yourself because you're enmeshed in what you're doing now. And that's also extraordinarily helpful. But these things are outside the collaboration. They support the collaboration, but they're outside the collaboration.
Trenton ReynoldsSo with regard to the collaboration, you started with five and now you're at two. Are you actively looking for more people to come in or are you content to... to continue on with just two?
Jackie LeishmanWell, we're staying as just the two of us, but we invite people in per project. So as we decide what our next project is, it may be that somebody appears in our life and we're like, we would like to work with them. And they're not always an artist. So we're actually in talks. with a woman for a project. It may not be the next. It may be too down the line, but she is a Harvard-trained lawyer who also is a historian, and we're going to investigate what's happened to women through the centuries and the years of the image of a woman specifically specifically talking about Medusa and how did a woman become a monster? You know, all these kinds of ideas. And she is just there as a sounding board and kind of to give us ideas. And she won't actually work on the art with us. So she's a collaborator of ideas. Right. That is really interesting. Yeah, it's it is interesting. So it just depends on what we have going on. All our work that we do together is about women's issues in whatever form that may take. And so people appear when we need them and they may just kind of come into this to the project with us.
Trenton ReynoldsSee, that itself fascinates me, that this evolution from five people and deciding that you wanted to do a project together, and how to negotiate that, losing people and then inviting other people to be involved in this kind of, I don't know, I can see how there's so many possible sensitive... I don't know. It's a minefield. Yes. It's a minefield. You're negotiating some really sensitive, especially when you're talking about creating artwork, which is so personal.
Patrice DworkinBut, you know, it's interesting because getting a little bit of time and space from the first try with the five of us, it does break down very logically in terms of what we learned along the way. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Patrice DworkinWhen we first started with Five, we really were Five who had enjoyed lively conversation critiquing our own work and whose work, by and large, we appreciated very deeply. But the first thing we learned with Five was it's very important what you bring to the collaboration. You can't bring something that didn't work for you. You can't bring your throwaways. You can't bring your odds and ends to the collaboration. You can't just say, oh, you know, I started this thing three months ago, and it's really not going to come to fruition, but I can put it in as raw material for the collaborative work.
It didn't work.
Patrice DworkinIt had to be the best material. It had to be something of your best in order to bring energy to the collaboration. So that was one of the first things we learned with the five of us.
Jackie LeishmanAlso trust. I mean, and I think this went on just not with the five Patrice's, but also with the three of us is trusting is, trust is essential that, like I was saying earlier, like I'm gonna show up and give my best 'cause I know Patrice will. That's a, I trust her to do that. That wasn't always there, just that somebody would come in and not bring their best work. that starts to break down that trust. I didn't trust necessarily everybody to give their best to what I offered them.
Patrice Dworkin- So that goes right to something else that we've discovered, which is that you have to be willing to let your work be changed. Yes. In a collaboration. This is not a collaboration only in name. This is an actual hands-on, often in real-time collaboration, although we can tell you more about how we deal with it when we're not together because we keep it going, even when we can't studio. There are two sides to that. One is letting go of something that you put your best effort into. And the other is not needing to put your signature on the finished work. Because one of the things that's most exciting to us about our collaboration together is that the finished work looks nothing like Jackie's and nothing like mine. If we put three bodies of work up, you would think they were three different artists. Mine, Jackie's, and our collaboration. Yeah, what we do together.
Jackie LeishmanAnd that's hard for people. I don't think people realize how hard that is to let things go and to let it be changed and to not be able to see necessarily your whole self in the piece anymore.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonHow much do you have? Did they need to know that you're having your wrestling with this? You know, right? Because I'm a group thing. Or when is it just like this is my lesson here to let go?
Jackie LeishmanOh, for sure. It's hard because you can't be selfish. And it's hard to know. Most people don't know that they are in some way.
Trenton ReynoldsSo that gets into an interesting just, you know, a theme that's come up several times is boundaries. You know, like I think it's it's interesting to be able to to find you can't be selfish, but I think you also do need to know where. who you are, where you end and the other begins, you know, and having a natural sense of your location in that relationship.
Patrice Dworkin- Yeah, it has to do with a sort of self-confidence. And it also has to do with respect.
Right.
Patrice DworkinYeah. Always, always being respectful of your fellow artist and what she has offered. I mean, you know, there are times even now when I'll just, I'll just call Jackie and say, can I rip this apart? I can't do it until I talk to you.
Right.
Patrice DworkinI have an idea, but it, you know, it's that inevitable thing that happens in our individual work as artists where it comes within a hair's breadth of being in the trash.
Right.
Patrice DworkinBefore it resolves. And, you know, when you know you're going down and the material that you're working with is not your own material, just always being conscious that you're respecting the other person's involvement in that process.
Jackie Leishman- I mean, the other half of that is that sometimes, you know, Patrice will send me something and I'll work on it. And then when we get together and look at it, we're like, well, it's not done. We need, this needs further work. And we decide who will do that work on it. Just to know that like, to not be so in it that it's like, oh, well, it should already be finished. Just to know like, there's still room and that there's still room for improvement and that you can talk about it and resolve it together. It doesn't mean that what I did to it wasn't enough, it just, or not good or whatever. It just meant that the piece is still not yet where it needs to be, and that's okay. You know, just to kind of have that space to be able to discuss that and not get my feelings hurt or, you know, Patrice's feelings hurt, that we're just like, no, this is, we trust each other so much that we know that's not what our intention is, is to ever hurt each other's feelings and that we have respect so that we can have difficult conversations of to say, you know what? you kind of ruined that piece and we need to bring it back, you know? You know, so.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonHow often does that happen? What does that happen? It happens once in a while.
Patrice DworkinYeah, it does. Just like it happens in your own work where you're just like, whoa, really hash this one to pieces. Yeah. But with our dynamic, it usually ends up being funny. even though we might have trepidation about it before the conversation usually ends up being pretty funny because the intentions are good
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI have a couple questions if you don't mind I wanted to ask about that I'll say a few of them at once one I was interested in like I don't know how you structure your days on a regular basis, but say one person has more time that they allot to the collaboration, they can work on it during the day. The other person can only work on it, you know, after work three days a week. And so does someone spend more time and how does that work? The other one was, do you give a sort of time limit of parameters to the collaboration? And then one that's just kind of, I'm just curious as far as like, if you were to sell the work, how does that work in kind of ownership and deciding how you're going to, what you're gonna do with the completed work? Really good questions.
Jackie LeishmanYeah, those are good questions. To start, I mean, Patrice and I are about time and how much time we spend on it. We both have a lot of other things going on in our life, and we're really open about what's going on in our life. I mean, I have three kids that are still at home. even at school yet. So I work kind of in between times, or I will stay up late or get up early. 'Cause if we set a deadline, like I know I need to finish these three pieces and send them off to Patrice. She knows that they will get done and sent to her. She doesn't need to know maybe what hours of the day I'm doing them in. Am I right, Patrice?
Patrice Dworkin- Yeah, and I think our schedules are really different in that, you know, Jackie is, is fielding three children who are, you know, all under the age of 12. And mine are grown. So in some ways, I do work more when she's running after children, I'm working on the fourth artist or my own studio work. And Jackie tends to call me more at night when she has freedom to look at what we're doing together but the way we accommodate that is we'll simply say you know what this week it's not going to work I have to be doing X Y & Z and let's just restructure how we think we're going to get this done to accommodate what's going on in our lives. So we have to be very flexible. And so far it's worked. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we're both really obsessive because we love doing this. And one of the things that we is we did a collaboration by mail. Because Jackie used to live 15 minutes from where I live and now she lives an hour and a half away. So it's not as easy for us to-- - Oh really? You're an hour and a half away. - Yes. - It's not easy for us to buzz back and forth to be in the same room together. So we decided that we weren't willing to sacrifice the momentum of the collaboration and that what we would do was we would establish a format, which was an eight by eight inch square. And we established certain thematic ground rules and also a palette. And I love that. So, for example, I would make three starts, three eight inch starts that left room for Jackie. And she would do the same thing and we would put them in the mail. Yeah. And then I'd be looking for Jackie's envelope. And Jackie, yeah, I was like Christmas, every time you get an envelope. Yeah, which is not to say that it was smooth sailing. Sometimes you'd open the envelope and say, what am I going to do with this. I can't see the first move. I can't see my move. And so we would put them up where we could see them, like outside the studio. You know, you stick them up on the kitchen wall or in the garage so you see it every time you pull the car in. And you let it seep in until you see a move. And
Jackie LeishmanYeah, that's and then we mail them back and then usually hopefully it's done after the two of us, but sometimes it's not and We would we try to get together. So we're in the same room once a month And we would bring all these and look at them and that's when we'd say oh this needs more work This is done, you know, and then we the ones that need more work We'd say, okay, Patrice, it needs this. It needs your hand. Or Jack, you know, Patrice would say, Jack, you need to. It needs what you do.
Patrice DworkinAnd what's uncanny about this is we always know who should make the move. Yes. And it's been this way since we started this. where we don't even we almost don't have to discuss it when we're working in real time we'll go oh look at that corner and we'll know who should go into that corner yeah I was gonna say that in in your video on on the the fourth artist
Trenton Reynoldswebsite you talk about that that process of being in the same room working on the same piece and then just knowing almost without having to talk about it, who was gonna get up and make the next mark. And what I was curious just watching that is I'm having a hard time envisioning what that actually looks like. Are you all just sitting in on chairs, looking at a piece and just getting up and walking with maybe a shared palette? Or what is the actual scenario? What does that look like?
Jackie LeishmanWell, I guess we can talk more about it like just Patrice and I when we worked on the big piece Closure, Patrice, when we were in the same room. So we made Closure, which was a huge, it was nine grids and it was the end of our transition project, which was about the ending of our relationship with our third collaborator, the whole thing was. And so we made Closure in real time together. Patrice and I, and we would work on it, and we'd put them up, and we'd look at it, and we'd be like, ah, it doesn't feel right. And then we'd look at each other, and I'd go up and put three pieces of paper, and Patrice was like, that's exactly what it needed. How did you know? And then she's like, and it needs a few little of these, and would do it. And I was like, yes, it does. And it was just-- It's interesting because we know each other's work so well what we do that it's We almost don't have to talk about that but also the piece the work speaks Mm-hmm you can see when there's an emptiness or like an energy that needs to be kind of pushed into something it will tell you and We and I know Patrice well enough to know what energy she can put in and I know myself well enough and she knows me That we're just like obviously it's you or you know, obviously It's you it needed that kind of energy there and And you know sometimes it's like oh it needs some more line work What do you think about this that you know and we're kind of talking about it But often it's just very clear that it needs something and if we don't know how to resolve something we'll probably know in a few hours, so we move on to something else and and work in that area and then we come back and we're like, oh, it's very clear now.
Trenton ReynoldsYou know, so-- - I think that's what was thrilling to me though about watching your video and also just, you know, talking to you, Jackie, about your process and the various iterations of your collaboration where there's this communication that happens. There's this creativity and there's an energy that is greater than the sum of the parts. It is such a magical and wonderful thing and I hadn't heard it communicated quite the way that you had or envisioned that dynamic in the way that you guys have experienced it which I just think is is
Patrice Dworkinkind of magical. There's also something that's specific to each project that we've noticed. For example, in the transition project that we just described where we were exchanging pieces through the mail, we made either 53 or 54 of those 8 by 8 inch pieces over the course of several months. And by the time we had finished them, we had developed a vocabulary, a visual vocabulary for that project that looks like the transition project as filtered through the sensibilities of Jackie and Patrice. So when we came together to make the wall size piece, the grid of nine large panels, we had that vocabulary to draw upon. So when we would, just to set the stage as Trent was... you know, trying to envision us. We have this big wall-sized grid of paper up on the studio wall, and yes, we're sitting back on chairs, you know, every, you know, 20 minutes, half an hour, we'll go, oh, let's just look at it, just the way you'd sit and critique anything else that you're looking at with a friend, and so we, you know, sit back and eat chocolate and, just look at what we've done. But sometimes the way we would communicate with each other was we would refer to one of the small pieces and say, it needs what we did there. It needs the layering that evolved on that piece. Or, oh yeah, look at number 47. Remember when Jackie lit it on fire?
Jackie LeishmanWell, we need to light this one on fire. Let's light it on fire.
Yeah.
Jackie LeishmanSo, you know, yeah, so all the language, all the tools were there on the other wall so we could look at them and say that needs to happen or, you know, it was, and it, and it just came together I mean it was, it was pretty easy.
Trenton ReynoldsI'd have to say, so we moved we moved kind of quickly past. what you early on established as the structure of this mailing collaboration how did you decide on what those parameters were you decided on the palette on this the format and then then there was an underlying kind of idea or narrative that you were both kind of thinking about at the same time?
Jackie Leishman- Well, yeah, we came to it because after the relationship ended with the other collaborator, Patrice and I were kind of, we didn't quite know what to do. is kind of, I'm putting this mildly, but we didn't quite understand what we were to do. And we were having, we got together and we worked and it just wasn't quite coming together.
Patrice DworkinBecause what we tried to do was jump into the project that we had set up as the next project with our third collaborator.
Yeah.
Patrice DworkinAnd what we discovered really rather painfully was that, that project was not going to happen until we dealt with the issue of separation from our third collaborator.
Right.
Patrice DworkinThat we were dead in the water unless we looked at what we were feeling about the change and the collaboration head on and made that the subject of the work.
Jackie LeishmanSo Patrice and I were on the phone having this conversation, kind of floundering together. And I told her, I said, you know, I was in the studio just a few days ago and I made a piece and it just came up and it was about this severing and it's two bodies moving away from the other. there's a separation of these three, you know, beings. And I made this, and it was just a little like quick ink, ink drawing kind of idea. And I told Patrice about it and she said, send it to me. So I send her a picture and she's like, that's it. Two moving away from one was our, go to like that was the narrative for us to work. - The visual, the visual narrative. - Yeah, and so that's, and then we started being like, okay, what else? And then we decided we'd just work on that. And all those feelings were able to come out in the piece. pieces that we made and that's where we went from it.
Patrice Dworkin- So very specifically, we decided on an eight by eight square, first the square, because often in collaboration, it's really helpful to change the orientation of the piece in order to, make your move on it and the square lends itself to that. You know, you're not sort of, you're not sort of going, is it a portrait or is it a landscape? Is it a portrait or is it a landscape? You can move it in any direction. And the eight by eight fit on both our scanner beds. because we wanted them to be easily scanned and sendable to each other as well and it also fits in a mailing envelope really nicely you know a nice 9 by 12 mailing envelopes so that we could mail a stack of them back and forth to each other. The palette, we felt overwhelmed by the use of color, which we enjoy in our independent work. And we thought that if we kept the palette extremely neutral, it would help us. So that's kind of a signature of our recent work is that limited palette.
Trenton ReynoldsI think that that right there is is so very important and it's it feels like it is something that that you guys just did with fairly intuitively, but for so many of our listeners, like, it might not be so obvious. Like, and I think the point is with that, is that you're making decisions based on your unique circumstances. The lesson to take away is not that you should, you should always do square pieces and you should always, you know, use a neutral palette. But you were responding to your specific circumstance, the limitations of having to work through mail and using a scanner. And I think for myself, I know, and I suspect for a lot of people, just knowing how to come up with those. those simple decisions of just what this is and defining that as a place to start or as boundaries for what this, the form that this will take. I think that's really, really, I don't know, powerful the way that you guys have been able to define that and a very difficult thing for a lot of us that are interested in collaboration but don't quite know how to get started with that.
Patrice Dworkin- And you have to permit for some trial and error. For example, the first few pieces that we did of the 53, we had not established that palette limitation. And when we saw how bogged down we got. And in trying to use color under those circumstances, we decided on that parameter. It wasn't a given from the very beginning. No, but it showed up very quickly. It showed up fast. And the thing to do is to respond to these things quickly. But another thing that I'd like to say is that Jackie and I agree that placing certain parameters on collaborative work
Is a plus. Yes, right
Patrice DworkinYou know, some people will say well, I just can't work with that limitation. But in fact Sometimes you soar higher if you have these boundaries that you need to stay within You have a different kind of latitude if you're working with certain limitations and that's analogous to life as well
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, I was going to say that is a life lesson right there.
Jackie LeishmanIt is. And I mean, I think, Patrice, I remember early on us talking about the film, The Five Obstructions. Have you guys seen that? No. Trent and Sabrina? It's a brilliant film. Please go see it. But it's about that very idea and the five what? Obstructions. So it's this young filmmaker talking to an older, very famous filmmaker. I think he's Swedish. And he asks him to remake his very famous film. But each time he gives him limitations. And this happens over and over. And the guy's like, "I can't do that. I can't do that." And then by the end, he can't wait for the limitations because he gets so creative. And then the last one, the young filmmakers, like I give you no limitations. And the guy's like, I can't do it. I can't do it. - Can't do it. - You know, so there's that. And the other thing that is kind of our guiding principle, which Patrice introduced to us was improv rules. Yes and. - It's always. - Whatever somebody offers you go with it. Yes and. What can I build off of that? And you know, there's a lot of other improv things that we kind of have, you know, that are, that help us to be able to work together in this way. So those two things I think are very helpful for anyone wanting to come into collaboration and this idea of limitations is see that film first of all and maybe go listen to some improv and study it or find somebody that's into it that can tell you how it works because it's It's a game with rules. Yes.
Patrice DworkinIt looks very free form, as does much of our work, but it's not. It has everything that we've learned, I guess, over five years now of collaboration.
Trenton ReynoldsBut indeed, when you look closer and spend more time with it, there is this really strong intentionality to it, you know, and that there's a very considerate thoughtfulness about how it's put together. And that combination of it feeling alive and not bogged down, but also very intentional and considered and careful, I think is such a hard balance to strike, so.
Patrice DworkinWell, when Trent handed me Sabrina's book in the studio last week, that was my first time seeing your work, Sabrina, and the thought that popped into my head, because it's got this beautiful watercolor-y fluidity to it, and I thought, "That's earned." That's earned. That doesn't just, that didn't just fall onto the paper.
It's clear.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThank you. Thank you, guys. Totally made my day. Well, to say one thing about that, the fluidity part, and you talking about when you talked about the scroll and the ability to go backwards and forwards, I really love that, and I resonated with that because I work long on long rolls of paper or canvas, And I like that aspect of addressing the piece from all different angles and well just both sides and continually to work around the piece versus at it. And I work on the floor and I really notice actually because I've been I have dogs and the dog fur is just a whole situation here. So I can't really roll it out on the floor here. So I have my work on the wall right now. I can't work around the piece. And that's a really important part of it. So that part of it was really...
Patrice Dworkinexciting to me that you had. Well, I would like to comment that my dog ate a chunk of the Daphne scroll while it was in process. Which did not sit well with any of the collaborators. But now we sort of look at that little part fondly. We managed to work it back in. And Cooper, the dog, is still with us. But, you know, part of that... the collaboration by mail had some of that quality to it. It's kind of like a tennis match. You know, the ball is bouncing back and forth over the net between us. So that has some of that which angle can I come at it from aspect of it. The handing it to another artist does that. Yeah. Right.
Yeah.
Patrice Dworkininstead of walking all the way around the garage to get to the other side of the piece you mail it to Claremont and see what happens
Sabrina Ward Harrisonis your work really yeah I love this you guys It's such a good conversation. It's so satisfying. It's fun for us, too. Yeah. What, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I just forgot what I was going to say again. Oh, oh, that your work, do you, I don't, is your work both, each of your work different and does that, is that a great aspect to it? And I wonder, just thinking, because I don't think it must, it must not be, I don't think it, I'm guessing it's not. But I think the lines must be blurry with collaboration when people's, people work together and their, their painting style is similar. It's like, wait, whose piece is, it just feels, I think the decisiveness of different work is exciting.
Jackie LeishmanWell, I think Patrice and I work very differently, even like the tools we use. I mean, when we first met Patrice, you were using like some kind of pen that you were etching into plexi. And like you use really fine tools. Power tools. Yeah, power tools to do like line. She does really fine work. It looks very topographical and all of that. And I would say I'm a lot more... like aggressive, would you say, Patrice? Like very, you know, like ripping, I'm okay with ripping things up and like kind of having a chaos of energy around me and, you know, that. And so those two things, they're very different, but they lend themselves to each other in a way. But I don't ever, and our work never starts to look like each other either, Patrice. - Patrice does it? - No, that's the thing you would worry
Patrice Dworkinor you might worry that your work would begin, your individual work would begin to look like the work of the collaboration. And you know, that was something that happened. You always have to be able to distinguish between what you're giving to the collaboration and what you're developing on your own. We watched a third collaborator fall into that trap. Yes. Where--
Jackie LeishmanWe were like, that actually looks a lot like what we just did together.
Huh.
Jackie LeishmanAnd-- So that wasn't going to work.
Yeah.
Patrice DworkinBut for the two of us, that doesn't happen. we tend to move in different directions on our own, but I know what Jackie's skill set is and she knows what mine is. And we're fascinated with what the other does.
Trenton ReynoldsAlong the same lines, do you think it's, more helpful or more is it more better is it is it better if as collaborators you are stylistically and maybe materially different in your own work yes
Jackie Leishmanyes yes i think it is i think it becomes too blurry if you guys do if right even like i mean patrice and i make work about even our own work is about very different things even our narratives are different what we're interested in it overlaps in the collaboration women's issues even in our own work we make work maybe about our family lives but our family lives are different our feelings all of it is so different our tools how we use them and I think it's great because that would be really hard if I was working with somebody and their work started looking like mine. But that would be a big problem. Well, it would end the relationship. I don't think you can go forward from that place.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd that's different. I think that almost is a different definition. It's not really the definition of collaboration. No, it's not.
Yeah.
Patrice DworkinYeah. So, you know, something interesting is that I think we mentioned that we met in a critique group for the Los Angeles Art Association. And one of the ground rules for critique groups was that they didn't separate sculptors from painters from people who draw or make prints. They wanted the group made up of people who did all those things so that you would sit in a room and have to find a valid way to critique work that was totally unlike what you do. That's great. and that made for a much more fertile discussion than if you put all the painters together to critique painting and all the sculptors together to critique sculpture you know now the lines are much more blurred between you know people do many things or integrate many traditional fine art skills into their work but in a way this was predetermined for us because we started in a group in which the work was nothing alike.
Trenton ReynoldsRight. I don't know if this might be an indelicately put question, but can you tell us or try to describe what some of the other pitfalls of working collaboratively are? You mentioned that, you know, maybe having your work start to mimic or not be separate from the collaboration is a potential pitfall. What are some of the other things that you guys have struggled with or have been points of failure?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonPoints of failure. Points of just total fails.
Jackie LeishmanI'm going to say...
Trenton ReynoldsYou don't have to answer that if you don't want to.
Jackie LeishmanNo, but here's one that we haven't really brought up and it is... and Patrice help me out if I'm, you know, struggling to say this correctly. Someone who values their own, their own success and views themself as better than other people. You can't see yourself as better than anybody else in the collaboration. You have to see them as your equal and that you value this collaboration and you're gonna give it your best effort. It's not just something you come to as like, oh, I guess I'll do this. But really, like my own career is so much more important than all of this. Like that's not fair to the other people in the room. So I would have to, Patrice, am I saying this correctly? Like you have to value other people and what they're offering and that you value the collaboration. You know, I still value my own work very much. It's it's and Patrice values hers and I value her own work. I want her to make it and I want her to be successful. But I know that when we work on the collaboration together, that we're both in this and we both want it to succeed. And we're not going to just pull out because, you know, it's an inconvenience.
Patrice DworkinI think what that speaks to, is I guess something that we've observed is that sometimes people will enter a collaboration because they're furthering, they want it to further an end that is not in fact the collaboration. That they're using it as a vehicle to promote some other aspect of their work rather than the actual outcome of the collaboration. and you know there are a lot of club there a lot of people calling themselves collaboratives and in some cases it's just lending their name to it you know they're not actually producing work with the other people in it but there's some advantage to having an association we're working out the nuts and bolts now.
Right.
Patrice DworkinYou know, and we own this work in common. Mm-hmm. And we are determining what outlets for it feel appropriate to us and are available to us.
Mm-hmm.
Patrice DworkinAnd we will benefit equally from it. Thank you. And we haven't formed a legal entity for it, but we may have.
Sabrina Ward Harrison- That's in process. - We may have, yeah, we-- - That's good, how are you gonna do that? We should try, we should do that.
Jackie Leishman- Well, yeah, we're gonna form an LLC um for the fourth artist um you know i'm married to a lawyer patrice is married to a banker like we oh we figure we can get this covered you know the advisory board is very strong yeah yes yeah you know they don't want us to end up in jail no or you know anything and so you know we have some very good um they would visit us in jail They would. So, you know, we're still, yeah, like Patrice said, it's an emerging artist. So we're in the process of figuring all this out now, which is exciting. We're at a really exciting time. And so, you know, we want to see it succeed. And, you know, part of why we do this is... It's really fun to work together. I have to say, this is a really fun thing. It is. Also though, what we delve into, I wouldn't delve into in my own work. And I don't think Patrice, you necessarily would either, if I can speak for you. So it's really fun to, and it's women's issues. And when part of this is, is when the pieces sell, we want part of the proceeds to go to women's organizations that help them to succeed. You know, we care and we have deep feelings that are very personal about a lot of this stuff that we're in and we want to do good and we're artists and part of it is making the work but we also know that money can help and if we can sell this work and part of that can go to help people, like all the better, you know, you know. you know, that's, we have good feelings and we have big feelings and we want the world to be better. And we're going to go about it in the ways that we know how that are in our tool house. So that's where we're at with this.
Patrice DworkinSo we started a project last November called Make Your Mark, which is something on website as well. And we started talking about this before the presidential election. And what we were interested in doing was bringing together a group of women and girls, a large group. We ended up with 36 collaborators. make your mark. And we wanted to ask each one of them to make a mark or marks for us that represented their emotional response to women making their mark in the world. And we had a whole stack of little four by four squares. We like those squares. Yeah. And we chose charcoal pencil and Sharpie as the two implement. and we asked each person to work on one of those little squares and give it back to us. In the middle of, just as we were launching, the election occurred and then all the feelings around the election went into the mark-making. that the 36 individuals gave us. The youngest participant is four years old, and the oldest is 74. So it's our four to 74 project. And we took the 36 participants pieces of drawing or marks or text that they gave us and we we preserved those and we scanned them we enlarged them we printed them out on all different kinds of material and we made them into 12 finished abstract pieces that for us reflected all the energy of our participants and our feelings about women making their mark in the world.
Jackie LeishmanBut it was fun to see, you know, we had such a range of people that were able to participate. And, you know, even things happened where, you know, I asked a girl, and she's seven, to make her mark, and she couldn't. You know, she didn't know what that meant. It was so kind of paralyzing for her to do that and just make, like, very, very light comments. scrawls and you know that goes into the piece because don't we sometimes feel like that you know like don't we feel like well what is what can I say what is my mark what does this mean you know and so we could we internalize that and that shows up you know so all these hopes and fears and you know trepidation and intimidation all of that goes in power you know some people are very powerful and you know they're like yes and All of that goes in into this work and we want it to sell because we want it to go to help women. To help them to be able to support themselves, to support their families, to be able to feel like their voice is heard and matters. And one little art project at a time, right? I mean, we each do what we can.
Patrice DworkinWe discovered that there are many more people who would like to make their mark, too. Oh, yes. So we're going to be busy with this in the coming months.
Trenton ReynoldsSo that's an ongoing project.
Patrice DworkinIt appears to have a life, yeah.
Yes.
Jackie LeishmanSo yeah it's it's a fun it's a fun thing to well the other thing Patrice that I wanted us to say is we felt it very important that we include everybody's mark. Everybody's mark. Everybody's is going in there because guess what there is room for everyone. and it was kind of a statement about that. Like, we're not going to make it where it's just only those that are good enough, you know, or that fit with what our aesthetic is or this or that. It's, no, there's room for you. We will make room, and it will be stronger because you're in it.
Patrice DworkinAnd that made it much more difficult for us. Yes. And if you're looking at the page, you'll see that we put up the composite of the 36 original pieces that we worked from, and they are nothing like what we do.
Right.
Patrice DworkinThey look nothing like the marks that Jackie and I make, which made it very challenging. And, you know, each of those people had essentially given us permission to take apart what they had given us, but some of them understand it and some of them don't.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Patrice Dworkinand that's just the way it is.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, I feel like this has been a fantastic conversation, and I'm so excited by what you guys are doing and inspired by it, and I just really appreciate you guys taking the time to share with us your process and what you're up to.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt was really, really satisfying and great. talk to you guys. It's a lot to think about. It's really thrilling to me. Thank you so much.
Jackie LeishmanThank you. Yeah. It was so fun to talk to you guys and, you know, we love talking to each other, but it's always nice to talk to other people as well. I know. And we're really enjoying your
Patrice Dworkincollaboration in Room in the Trees as well. Yes. It's unlike anything else. It is. It's
Jackie Leishmanreally great. I mean, I've told you that, Trent. I mean, I was gushing all over it, but keep going. I mean, I think that there is a space that where we need to have real conversations about what it is to be a creative and how do you problem solve and make a living and, you know, push through hard things. All of that is important. So I appreciate you guys doing that.
Trenton ReynoldsThanks for listening today. You can find Patrice Dworkin at www.patricedworkin.com. That's P-A-T-R-I-C-E-D-W-O-R-K-I-N.com. And she is on Instagram at patricedworkinart. Jackie Leishman. Her website is... Jackie Leishman dot com J a C K I E L E I S H M a n dot com and she is on Instagram at Jay Leishman art their collaborative work website is the fourth artist calm that's fourth of the word spelled out at the fourth artist calm and on Instagram at the fourth artist you can find all this information and more at the fourth artist dot com. including some cool videos in the show notes at roominthetrees.com. And thank you to Patrice and Jackie for an excellent, excellent conversation. You shared a lot of important wisdom, and I hope there are artists listening to this podcast who feel inspired to go out and give collaborative art making a try. All you introverts, don't let those demon voices tell you collaboration is not for you. We are all looking for connection and expansion, and you get to decide what that looks like. So, go start making a conversation. ♪