With social distancing well underway, there appears to be even more creative collaboration occurring as some people find themselves with a little more time to explore creative pursuits and alternative online ways of collaborating.
Collaborating with one or more people, in my experience, becomes much more than a sum of parts. Each person brings new perspectives, new ideas, themes and concepts bounce around virtual spaces and art morphs and changes.
In this time of isolation I have been working with a poet. I would text a word a day as they arose, he would write a poem, I would then produce a visual piece, he then sometimes recorded his poem and I added them all to a website. The process changed over time: I would receive a poem out of the blue that would then ignite a creative spark or I would send an existing art work for a poem.
Some worked, some didn’t and were discarded, as with any creative journey. Some were magnificent, some poignant and some whimsical. One recorded poem was submitted for a wider collaborative project with an animator and artists working on a lockdown film.
I can only describe the process as creative joy. Long may these kinds of collaborations continue. Here is the website so far: https://downloadstowhitefields.wordpress.com/
Delicate by Frankie Owen
Softly touching the tip of the hillside the sunlight’s fingers danced across the undulations of the land
Speeding up to warm the surface, heat emissions from its unchanging chemistry absorbing, penetrating the atmospheric band
Channeling its power into every nook and brook along the riverbank to the sea warming the deep oceans below
Warming under the covers, insights from the void come bubbling to the surface
a need is being born
life is touching life
the outcome can only be life itself: dawning, yearning to be free from its shackles
Elation freeing the mother from her own traps, bonds are broken, release is found from within
Warm water falls tumbling to the surface, great Lakes evaporate powered by delicate sunlight
rest arrives
time to be still knowing
stillness is rightfully yours
From its zenith it started its descent driftingly, slowly the earth is warmed for a time now
we start our sleep, our time for darker dreams
dreams of a new beginning till tomorrow, at delicate dawn we start it all again.
Wyrd Creativity 