Sample Chapter

Introduction to Collaborations
by Stephen Kasner

Early in 2006, while preparing for a split exhibition with David D’Andrea in San Francisco, we decided that we should attempt to produce a collaborative silkscreen poster to commemorate the event. For this, however, we decided to go about it a rather unique way. Most collaborations begin with actual, physical pieces of artwork that go back and forth between the participants, each having the opportunity to view, think and study on the marks, textures, colors, images and ideas of the other. David and I decided on nothing as a means of projecting our thoughts. Each of us worked on drawings that we thought the other would appreciate and communicate with, all the while never showing our work to one another until they were complete. Throughout the fog of this vague process, and once joining our pieces together to create the poster, we were both delighted with the outcome. Despite the variance in our attack styles, these two works folded together with a delicate and easy magic.

It was through this, and during our exhibition at SPACE Gallery, where we decided to continue our collaborative process. From here on in, however, we would create physical works handed back and forth to one another, in a more traditional manner.

I was so intrigued and excited about the possibilities of this process, I began to express the idea among several of my most cherished artist friends, of whom I have admired and have been fortunate enough to know personally, for lengths of time ranging from a couple months, to many years. Each met my collaboration idea with excitement and gusto, and it was beyond thrilling to continuously send and receive various pieces of art, for months on end, to and from such a wide variety of artistic masters- each coming in with their own energy and persona, and sending them back out with an attempt at capturing a sense of my own spirit. We did this again and again. Lines began to become blurred at places. Each piece carried such individual strength and there were moments where one felt like babysitting a friend’s child. It was beautiful.

There was one exception to the mailed collaboration system in this series. Steven Johnson Leyba and I caught the opportunity to actually sit with one another in the process of these collaborations. We spent several days enjoying each other’s company, discussing the process and watching one another work. It was exhilarating, exciting, and a very different and unique way for me to work. I tended to concentrate on large washes of shapes and form, while Leyba delicately attended to minute details, the likes of which I would have never conceived.

Every artist presented here brought new, stirring and personal challenges to these pieces, each with his own way of working; Seldon Hunt’s meticulous, brooding lines, Steven Cerio’s childlike, psychedelic freedom, David D’Andrea’s apocalyptic visions and Steven Leyba’s quests for perpetual enlightenment...

I am continuously honored to be a part of them all.