I had been hearing of Shoebox PR’s Call and Response series for awhile before I finally figured out what it was. I was just in time to sign up for Round 4.
Here’s how it works. You let Shoebox know you want to participate. They throw your name in a hat. And they randomly pair you with another artist. Every day for 14 days, you and your partner artist send each other art back and forth (in photo format)—hence “call and response”.
I was paired with Ada Pullini Brown from Los Angeles, who is talented, conscientious and really just a lovely person. Here are our SIXTEEN artworks, in order (Ada started us off).
Making a piece of art every other day, in a single day, in response to something that you’re just seeing for the first time, is a high pressure reality-show type situation. There’s no time for paint to dry, for details or thoughtfulness or anything apart from just DOING IT. Something about that time pressure is great, though…. I found myself experimenting with new materials and techniques, including burning fabric with matches (#14), taking photos of paper cutouts on the floor of my carport (#2), using figurative shapes (pretty much all of them), sewing and painting on paper (#10 and beyond) and using hand-cut stamps (#12, #16).