In three years these three artists have forged a collaboration.
The Beginning - The Process - The Benefits
Kathie Briggs, Peg Keeney and Desire Vaughn are three full time studio fiber artists living in rural northern Michigan. Desi and I met four years abo in Grand Rapids, where a group of art quilters were discussing forming a regional group. Although that group never materialized, some of the artists remained in touch.
In 2003, we decided to attend IQA Chicago show where we met Kathie and the"Fabrication" group was born. Early on the three of us deceded to mneet on a regular basis because we lived 1 1/2 hours apart.
At first our meetings were more on the order of show and tell. Gradually as we vacame more confortable with each other we began to include critiques. Often, depending where we were meeting, we would paint fabric. dye fabric, make silk paper and experiment with new techniques. Our decision to collaborate began with the decision to work together to make a piece for one of Anne Copeland's California challenges. This first collaboration involved the five members of the larger Fabrications group and was more on the order of a
Round Robin."
As a result of that experiemnt we decided to try a different kind of collaboration, where we as a group would make the artistic decisions. Beginning with a core idea such as "seasons of the garden" we start by generating ideas, discuss noond possibilities, images, the range of color and basic design considerations. Each apprroaches her art from a very different perspective. Preliminary discussions are always and interesting and exciting challenge. The beginning conversation is often miles from the finished work.
