Martha S. Heimbaugh

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The following article was originally written for and published in the Kansas Artist Craftsmen Newsletter and was later republished in the  Blue Valley Quilters Guild Newsletter after a successful collaboration with Ms. Ryan.

Collaboration Exhilaration

By Martha S. Heimbaugh © 2004

Note: This article may not be reprinted without prior written approval of the author.

Collaboration is the act of working together.  Historically, the word was used to describe a partnership with the enemy during war, but a more contemporary definition involves the idea of two or more people working in harmony in the creation of a project.  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to collaborate on a quilting project?  Perhaps you have already and didn’t even recognize your input as collaboration.  This year I will be part of the team creating the opportunity quilt.  Thinking about this exciting endeavor put my mind back to a really personal growth experience I had a few years ago.  This collaboration brought many questions to my mind and eventually led me to a tremendous life experience, which I labeled “collaboration exhilaration”.  I thought I would share this experience with guild members and possibly inspire some to try a collaboration of your own.

My work in the medium of fabric is and continues to be a journey of growth and development.  I began by working with commercially available fabrics and still enjoy the process of cutting, piecing, and quilting many different fabrics together into a whole, cohesive work.  As satisfying as this was, I felt compelled to do more.  I started dye-painting fabrics, which quickly led to fabric painting and more piecing.  Still, I felt my work was lacking depth and this need for more depth led me to create works, which incorporate hidden wire forms.  The combination of texture and shadow this creates is very appealing to me.  I was beginning to think my artistic journey had leveled out when, unexpectedly, an interesting collaboration opportunity came my way.  I wasn’t sure what to expect with this collaboration.  The person I would be working with was a choreographer and modern dance artist.  I began to ponder many questions as my artistic journey ventured into what turned out to be, collaboration exhilaration. 

In early 2001 I was contacted by a Kansas City, professional modern dance company called, Reach…a movement collective.  Reach was seeking the permission of several artists, to use slides of their work as the backdrop for a performance planned for the fall of 2001.  This was a fairly easy collaboration.  All I had to do was provide the slide and then sit back and watch what the dancers did with it.  From this first contact with the group, came a much more interesting offer for a joint collaboration in the summer of 2001.  This time, the proposed idea was to paint a pantsuit for a solo tap dance piece that would be part of a production based on the meaning of the word blue.  As a fabric artist, I was free to interpret this in any manner I saw fit.  What an exciting and interesting opportunity, I thought.  I accepted the offer and entered the collaboration.

Once I decided to become part of the collaboration, questions started pouring through my head.

·       What does the word “collaboration” mean anyway?

·       Is collaboration a growth process or a surrendering of control of my art? 

·       Will I disappoint my collaborators by not producing what is expected of me? 

·       What is expected of me anyway?

·       How do I plan to create something ahead of time that will elicit an emotional response from an audience when I don’t even know who the audience will be? 

·       Sounds like this could be time consuming, is this really worth my time? 

As I continued to ponder these and other questions, the dancers began their work of building the choreography and music for the production entitled, Blue!.  Over the course of the next few months, I stayed in touch with the production’s progress through a series of emails and phone conversations.  Ideas and concerns were discussed that related to the type of materials we would use for the costume, the type of paints I would be using, and issues related to stage lighting.  As these conversations progressed, my enthusiasm for the project grew.  On a professional level, I was looking forward to presenting my art in a new and unusual way.  And on a personal level, the project gave me something positive to look forward to and think about during a time when I was dealing day to day with my mothers declining health situation.  Thankfully, by late November my mother’s health had stabilized and was improving daily.  By mid-December her health crisis seemed averted and it was at this time that a change in the collaboration was proposed to me. 

Instead of painting a pantsuit, I was offered to paint two skirts and 4 scarves for a female dance duet.  To me, skirts seemed to offer more design possibilities and I was also intrigued with the inspiration for the dance itself.  Inspired by the Pentagon attack of September 11^th, the dance was a female duet entitled “Not Yet”.  In the dance, one person dies, the other lives.  Also, because I’d been so busy caring for my mother, I had not taken any creative time to respond artistically to the terrorist attacks and I felt this would be a good creative outlet for some of those feelings.

Near the end of December, my mother passed away unexpectedly.  My heart was heavy and my brain fuzzy.  Time seemed to pass in a different way than before her death.  As late January approached, the moment I’d been anticipating with great expectations for over 6 months, now loomed ominously before me.  With performances scheduled for early March, I had one month to paint two skirts and four scarves.  The moment when the thinking process needed to become an action process was upon me.  A videotape of the choreography, a cassette tape of the music, and my own hand written notes, were the tools I had before me as I sat in my studio staring at the skirts and scarves.  Blank white canvases awaited inspiration.  My earlier feelings of excitement had now turned dark.  Anxiety and fear sat on each side of me. 

As I stood, examining the skirts I needed to paint, I realized that this project of collaboration was also a symbol to me of the trust and faith my fellow collaborators had in my abilities and me.  After all, with this project, there was no way for me to discard or set aside the completed artwork if things did not work out or live up to my expectations.  I had one chance to either get it right or get it wrong.  Placed on top of these feelings was one additional stressor.  I was still dealing with my grief over the unexpected loss of my mother.  Deep inside, I wasn’t even sure I could pick up a paintbrush, much less mix colors, or figure out what design to even paint in the first place! 

I sat down and began drawing.  Classical ideas at first gave way to more free flowing abstract lines as I continued drawing.  Almost unknowingly, the transformation occurred.  That moment when all the emotion of the past few months, the disbelief, fear, and sorrow I had felt about the terrorist attacks coupled with the aching pain over losing my mother, the trauma of her final hours, the emptiness I felt with her passing.  All these silent emotions became my fuel for the creation of the project.  The fear and anxiety had been replaced by a powerful, clear minded drive to create and complete an important project.  Once I’d completed the final color design sketch, I emailed that sketch to my contact person for any additional feedback before I began the actual painting process.

When I returned the completed costume, the choreographer was thrilled.  We discussed my own personal symbology within the painting so that this information could be passed on to the other dancers and possibly incorporated into dance and facial expressions.  As I walked away and left behind the completed skirts and scarves, I felt good about what I’d accomplished.  Still, I felt that “something” had been left undone.  I wasn’t sure what that “something” was until the night of the performance.  Only then did the project take on its full completion and impact.  As the female duet dance unfolded on stage, movement, music, theatrical lights shining, I finally realized the full completion of the project.  This was truly a work of motion and movement, sound and emotion, visual expression, a work of pure collaboration.  Words cannot put meaning to the feelings of enrichment and joy that I experienced that evening as I watched with nervous anticipation.  The collaboration was finally complete.  The uniting of art and artists, symbology, emotion, and ideas all came together before me.  Exciting, fulfilling, a complete success.  A unique and wonderful experience, this was collaboration exhilaration.

The process of group collaboration may not always be as emotionally charged as this experience was for me.  Nevertheless, anytime we work together in a collaborative process, each person brings to the group and eventually to the project, something that would otherwise not exist.  I encourage each of you to give collaboration a try if you haven’t already, and experience the growth that is certain to happen.

The above article may not be reprinted without written approval of the author.