As the weather warmed up and the light in the studio grew longer, so did our hours spent printing. Six weeks into the residency we each felt ready to show each other our prints. The exchange of 10 prints each gave us the flexibility to be able to edit the final selection from 20 finished prints down to 16. We set the rules to trust one another to respond to each of the exchanged prints in which ever way we felt we wanted to. Only after the responses were complete would we look at editing out the less successful collaborations.
As the last of our individual prints were made using silkscreen, mokuhanga, and marbling, we set up a space in the studio to lay out our prints for the exchange.
It was great to see all of the prints together at last. The inks we had jointly chosen in the first week of the collaboration became the unifying element. Our different sensibilities were reflected in the forms we’d created, yet as a whole it felt as though there was space to reflect, consider and create a dialogue within each of the prints. We each adopted different approaches in creating our individual responses to the others’ prints. Guillaume took an image of the collection of my 10 prints and used photoshop to explore colour, form, shapes and scale in order to plan his responses. I took a more physical approach, initially by using paper cut outs and watercolour pigments to gauge my responses to his prints. This allowed me to play with each print and response at the same time, switching between what was working and what was discarded.
