Collaboration Between Artists and Friends
I thought perhaps it was time to take a little break from all the farm research and write a post on artistic collaboration! I don’t think I’ve written about my friend Lisa Kennedy in my blog. Lisa and I became fast friends while we were in graduate school at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. We were both in the Low Residency MFA program, but she was in the class ahead of me. Lisa is an amazing artist! I’m including her website http://www.lisadariakennedy.com so you can check out her work. She is a professor at MassArt working on her tenure. She is also a daily painter and to date has painted 4,986 paintings since she started this practice approximately 13 years ago! This is on top of all the other artwork she creates throughout the year. Lisa also teachings Daily Painting workshops around the country and has even taking her workshop abroad teaching it in Italy pre-pandemic!
I’ve always admired her work but until recently have not had the honor of owning a Lisa Kennedy original. Lisa has also admired my work and has been following the progress of my ceramics and wheel throwing over the last year. We’ve been talking about collaborating once I get the Artist Retreat up and running at Palisade Posh, where she teaches one of her Daily Painting workshops and as part of the workshop the participants purchase one of my ceramic vases. The Daily Paintings are small still life paintings of flowers. This got me thinking… what if I sent Lisa one of my vases, then she would paint one of her Daily Paintings using the vase and send the painting to me! Once our collaboration was completed, we’d each have an original work of art! Right after Christmas I sent her the vase, she loves it and said it is now her favorite piece of art in her collection. She has even started working on a Daily Painting series that features the vase! Two weeks ago, I received my painting which I proudly have on display in our little temporary apartment right next to the other Polka Dot candlesticks that were part of the ceramic series I made. I must say it is cool seeing the two together and what a fun collaboration!
