UPDATE: The Counterpoints show is now online on the MOFA website.

Now read on…

One of the organizations I belong to is the Missouri Fiber Artists (MoFA). MoFA underwent a huge leadership shift early in 2020 and the new president, Becky Stevens, was looking for ways to bring the group together in what evolved into a year of extreme distancing. 

As a result, last fall, a number of us began a collaborative project called “Counterpoints”. Counterpoints was the brainchild of Mary Elmusa; she and Becky then developed the project together.

Mary writes…

This was a creative challenge designed to pair artist members of Missouri Fiber Artists Association, (MoFA) in order to create joint collaborative works of art for exhibition. This pairings challenge, “Counterpoints 2020”, is designed to facilitate artistic growth and creativity, and to develop fun, collaborative shared interactions among members.

Artists were randomly paired.

I was thrilled to be paired with Judy Cobillas, both because I knew her to be a tapestry weaver and we were already communicating online, hoping to get to know each other, and planning to meet some day.

Each set of partners were asked to choose one of the 7 elements of art to focus on.

We were given 7 elements to choose from: color, line, texture, shape, value, space, or form. Judy and I talked about texture, line, and color in several email exchanges. In the end, we settled on color.

Each artist was to focus on one aspect of the element and the other its counterpoint. 

For example, if  “line” was the chosen element, one might focus on thick lines and the other on fine lines. Thus, creating a “counterpoint.”

We decided to keep it simple and choose compliments.

Each artist began with a 10” x 10” artwork in her choice of media…

Now this is where the challenges began to take hold - for me, anyway. Not the 10” by 10” but the “in her choice of media”…. 

Of course, mine was tapestry. I was imagining how we would trade looms and how to weave something half-way when I got the email from Judy saying her choice was wet-felting, something I have never done. Let the challenge begin!

Each artist stopped about halfway through completion…

How to do something half-way? How do you know when it’s about half-way? 

Another challenge!

I wrote to Judy…

Maybe we’re both hung up on the same thing- how to stop something half-way. For one thing, how do we know it’s halfway if - for instance, we were working over a 10 by 10 canvas.

Maybe we should think of it like a (nearly) completed piece and then the other person works back into it.

If you do something felted, I could stitch back into it.

If I did a tapestry (and I’m kind of a one-trick pony), I could either leave open areas or you could felt or stitch or whatever on top of it. Or cut it up and sew it back together!

We looked to Mary for guidance and she responded…

This may be one of those times when everything cannot be planned out from the beginning. It begs another approach…

A favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quote might relate:

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages... In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried”

We talked it out through more emails. Sharing what we were thinking and keeping in mind to leave room for the other.

After several false starts, I chose a grid pattern in greens. I wrote a bit about this in a previous post. Knowing that Judy was more comfortable felting, I felt she might either do some surface embellishment with needle felting or embroidery. I tried to give her enough room to embellish yet still create some structure for the piece. Thus the grid.

We continued our emails, sharing progress photos along the way.

We had a time limit, but it was generous.

We had two months to get our project to our partner 

 Judy sent me her half-finished piece a month before it was due. And I have to admit, if I remember correctly, I had not even begun mine. 

When I opened the package, I was stunned. It was so beautiful! I could not imagine doing anything to it. I knew she had chosen blue as the compliment and added the layer of orange to give me something to work on. What would I do? All I could think of was stitching into it with threads. But how much? Why? Where? 

I emailed her back saying

It’s so gorgeous! Maybe I should just paint an orange and blue frame!

We emailed some more. Judy assured me it was not as delicate as I thought. She sent me a smaller piece to have at it and I was amazed. How right she was. I took a few stabs at it with the needle and some stem stitches and put it aside. At that point I was thinking of trying to emulate a sky at sunset.

Oh, and that’s another thing. Before we mailed our pieces to each other, we were to complete a form and give the piece a title. Ah, a little direction! Judy’s piece was titled “Swimming at Sunset”

Judy, on the other hand, had to wait until deadline day to receive mine!

We had another 2 months to get the final project completed

Here’s what she wrote when she got my piece in the mail:

I was nervous about working on someone else’s artwork. But once I saw Kennita’s woven piece I knew what I wanted to add. I tried not to take away from the beautiful weaving, but just leave an impression of what I hoped to see on the prairie.

(My title was “Songs of the Prairie” - or “Prairie Songs” maybe. I actually do not remember).

I would have never thought to needle felt on top of a weaving because I just figured you would do what ever you wanted while weaving. But it was very easy (because it's wool) to needle felt on top of the work. I will have to remember this in the future.

I was about one week shy of the deadline. In a slight state of panic, I ordered 3 shades of orange roving and some felting needles. My daughter was visiting. When the roving arrived, she suggested mountains. Thank you, honey! Who knows what a mess I would have made if not for her help!

It was a fun project, both challenging and nerve-wracking at times. Some days I didn’t think I was up to the task, but no way was I going to let Judy down.

We both learned a little about needle felting, too. Judy learned she could needle felt on her own weavings- and I learned I’m not likely to needle felt on mine!

The project has culminated into an exhibition and is now on display at UCM Gallery of Art in Warrensburg, MO.

You can read more about it and see some of the works on display on their website - and by searching #MoFA_counterpoints_2020 on Instagram.

Have you had any experience with collaboration? The only piece I had ever done before was knitting couch cushions (yardage by machine) for the couch my husband made! So easy compared to this.