Getting Earnest at Echo

[Ross Annels]

Things have begun in earnest now - well at least as earnest as they get at a collaboration event.

Harvey wore a carefully selected non-matching socks every day

Humour plays a big role in collaboration, building relationships and generating playful projects.

An oarsome bench takes shape

And talking, lots of talking.

Woodturner Beth Ireland, carver Jeanette Rein talking over a project with Jack Nichols

 

Techniques are demonstrated and shared

And everyone relaxes into the relationships and the work.

I have begun work on two projects. One is a project started by Kelly - to transform a gnarly piece of wood into the head of a creature. The other - to take the gourd I selected from the resource table and turn it into a lamp - I propose laminating the veneers to form wiggly jellyfish like tentacle legs. Kelly’s friends Miriam and Dan - both know Kelly through Bucks Community College - join the lamp project. This tenuous connection - the college friends of the person who agreed to give me a lift - leads to a precious collaborative experience.

[Brigitte Martin]

Ross, are there also projects going on across media, e.g. a furniture maker working with a ceramicist?

[Ross Annels]

Yes Brigitte, there are - this collaboration is fairly woody (!), but as you will see - there are some cross-media collaborations taking place. Each collaboration I have attended seems to have its own culture of how much cross media collaboration it occurs - which partly depends on the disciplinary mix of the attendees. This one - in common with CollaborationAu has a lot of woodturners - so there are a lot of woody projects. The CollaboratioNZ is many more strongly cross-media projects, and I believe that will be the case at Emma also.

[Ross Annels]

Oops - has many more ... :D