Collaborative Hiatus

Both my dear and very “key” collaborators Ron and Anne, have shared that they are taking hiatus from our creativity together here at Keyhole Gallery.   I had a sense that schedules were becoming very full, focus was shifting and that other things needed their undivided attention.  I completely understand and have not one bad feeling towards the announcements about this break.  The news has left me at a bit of a loss as to what’s next.  Since I founded the idea of our gallery and they signed on to help move it forward, the three of us were the tangible thing we had going.   Hosting monthly studio and salon sessions always included them.  Until the fall it’s now just me.

Locally anyway.

or seemingly ….

Today a blog friend shared an image.  He was talking with Twyla Tharp at a book signing. Wow.

It struck me how much collaboration means to me, and why I look forward to what might be next for the gallery.

Below in italics describes Twyla Tharp’s new book: The Collaborative Habit

While the description speaks to perhaps the dangers or downside of  collaboration,  Our Twyla has a 40 year history of one collaboration or another.   It’s how she built her empire/her brand!  After reading the description of her book I am left with how strongly I feel about not doing things alone.  Together is for sure a better way to strive towards just about anything.

Many efforts in my life are in conjunction with others, and wouldn’t be something remarkable without the experience of working collaboratively.

I joke often about coming out of the closet creatively with my photography.   I mean that figuratively ( yes, pun intended) and literally, and even more so since the gallery had a successful live exhibition this last week.

Hundreds of people now “know”

I am really saying  I don’t want to be an artist, naked and alone in a community that overall is more traditional in it’s sensibilities.

Yet right now that’s exactly what I am.

Alone and artfully nude!

Can’t wait to see what happens next!

I am not discounting my virtual participants.  Nor can I discount what we have begun here at Keyhole Gallery. I feel exceptionally proud.

We have plenty to still create too!

Thank you to all!

Karen Hanrahan ~ Founder:  Keyhole Gallery.

In a career that has spanned four decades, choreographer Twyla Tharp has collaborated with great musicians, designers, thousands of dancers, and almost a hundred companies. She’s experienced the thrill of shared achievement and has seen what happens when group efforts fizzle. Her professional life has been — and continues to be — one collaboration after another.

In this practical sequel to her national bestseller The Creative Habit, Tharp explains why collaboration is important to her — and can be for you. She shows how to recognize good candidates for partnership and how to build one successfully, and analyzes dysfunctional collaborations. And although this isn’t a book that promises to help you deepen your romantic life, she suggests that the lessons you learn by working together professionally can help you in your personal relationships.

These lessons about planning, listening, organizing, troubleshooting, and using your talents and those of your coworkers to the fullest are not limited to the arts; they are the building blocks of working with others, like if you’re stuck in a 9-to-5 job and have an unhelpful boss.

Tharp sees collaboration as a daily practice, and her book is rich in examples from her career. Starting as a twelve-year-old teaching dance to her brothers in a small town in California and moving through her work as a fledgling choreographer in New York, she learns lessons that have enriched her collaborations with Billy Joel, Jerome Robbins, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, David Byrne, Richard Avedon, Milos Forman, Norma Kamali, and Frank Sinatra.

Among the surprising and inspiring points Tharp makes in The Collaborative Habit:

-Nothing forces change more dramatically than a new partnership.

-In a good collaboration, differences between partners mean that one plus one will always equal more than two. A good collaborator is easier to find than a good friend. If you’ve got a true friendship, you want to protect that. To work together is to risk it.

-Everyone who uses e-mail is a virtual collaborator.

-Getting involved with your collaborator’s problems may distract you from your own, but it usually leads to disaster.

-When you have history, you have ghosts. If you’re returning to an old collaboration, begin at the beginning. No evocation of old problems and old solutions.

-Tharp’s conclusion: What we can learn about working creatively and in harmony can trans- form our lives, and our world.

book description source

April 6, 2011 | Categories: Random | Tags: artful nude, artists, collaborative, karen hanrahan, keyhole gallery | Leave A Comment »