Three +Three Project

I've got a new project on with artist Rosanne Jedly (see her very cool website at http://www.rosannejedly.com/), in which we inspire each other with our poems/paintings to create new works.

The idea is that eventually this will be published in a little pamphlet, with the paintings and poems next to each other and interweaving. This isn't about creating photoetry (haven't seen an example that works yet) or illustrating a set of poems; it's more about a dialogue between two artists working in different media.

Each piece will work on its own, but our intention is to inspire each other to create something that we might not otherwise have thought of.

The project is called Three + Three, and the intention is that we each select three pieces of work from the other's repertoire and create something new inspired by each of these three pieces.

So far I have written three poems based on Rosanne's paintings (although I intend to write more and then choose the best). They are 'After Oil Seed Rape Field', 'Smoking Hot Woman' and 'Rap' and I'm really pleased with the work so far. Of my poems, Rosanne has so far selected 'The Satellite Rabbit' from a series of poems, and 'Echo Speaks', which you can see on ABCtales (http://www.abctales.com/story/arfellian/echo-speaks). However, she's at a bit of a disadvantage in this, as what with waiting for the layers of paint to dry etc. it takes her longer to complete a painting than it does for me to get a poem reasonably polished off!

Anyway, I've been working with Rosanne in her studio, and also putting together a basic MS Publisher document to give us an idea of how the pamphlet could work, and to check the quality of the photos we've been taking. So far though it seems to be coming on really well! I'm very excited about this :D

I'm loving writing from Rosanne's pictures as well. I've written from pictures a couple of times before but nothing on this scale, and the paintings are really magnificent. Rosanne uses layers and layers of colour built up to create amazing compositions, most often portraits of her 'spirit people'. I think this project has given a depth to my work and a focus that I haven't experienced before. So bring on more 'artistic dialogues'! I'm loving it!!