Artist Benjamin Kress & Writer Cate Marvin: On Collaboration
"WHY I AM AFRAID OF TURNING THE PAGE"
Cate Marvin: Before we were "paired up" for the 2-UP Project, Benjamin Kress and I had never met in person, nor were we familiar with one another's work. Long before we were introduced at a 2-UP launch party, we conducted a series of email exchanges, during which we exchanged images and texts so that we might respectively get to know one another as artists.
Benjamin Kress: During the formation of 2-UP, the decision had been collectively made that the organizers, Adam Shecter and Joe Winter, should determine the pairings, so it was kind of like a creative blind date. Before meeting Cate in person, I read both of her books of poetry, and felt a connection to the intensity of her written imagery.
CM: Ours was a lucky pairing, as it soon became apparent that we shared similar preoccupations with bereavement, religious and spiritual anxiety, and irony on a most complex level. Our first email exchanges approached how we would merge these mutual obsessions when it came to creating our poster.
BK: We investigated a variety of connections and possibilities that were all across the board, but in retrospect, I think what we were trying to suss out was something less concrete: the hard-to-define area where our creative endeavors would overlap and something new could happen.
CM: I visited Ben at his studio, and he showed me his work. In conversation, it became apparent that we'd both lived through a period in which we'd both felt reluctant to show our work to the public. Hence, we came up with the title "Why I Am Afraid of Turning the Page," as a sort of rallying cry to call the both of us to confront our fears with regard to our respective mediums.
BK: The concept of confronting creative fear was compelling, but really daunting. I can attach some of my creative fears to specific incidents and events, and wasn't sure if I actually wanted to make artwork about the things that I felt had damaged my creative process. What I eventually made addresses this in a very roundabout way, but I usually tend to approach things in a direct way at first, and it takes time for it to become more subtle and feel right. I wasn't sure where to start.
CM: At first, we desired to create an Artist Book, one that the reader could open out into a poster, but then fold back up again into a little book, in which the poem would reveal itself. We even invented several complicated constructions for this book which would involve the poem being read in two different ways, given that the poster would have a front and a back.
BK: It seemed interesting to present something that appeared to be one thing or one way, but actually could be totally different depending on how it was approached.
CM: Ben also had the brilliant idea of creating a book with pages that, like an anatomy text, would fold back to reveal the layers of the body. This tied into my desire to write an elegy about a friend who'd died from a serious fall while rock-climbing. We then deserted these initial ambitions and remained out of touch for some time. When we reconnected, Ben had come up with the idea of creating a series of Jesus mug-shot portraits.
BK: The connecting link between the Jesus mug-shots and Cate's elegy was a story she had told me about her friend. Before his unexpected death, someone had told him that he would go to hell unless he changed his ways. The mug-shots were based on the various appearances of Jesus in traditional representations, but were formatted in an unglorified police-shot style. I was thinking of them in terms of moral ambiguity and judgment, among other things, but I think the resulting drawings are an example of confronting something head-on that would ultimately benefit from more subtlety. So, I have eight unused Jesus mug-shots. I haven't decided what they are missing yet and set them aside for now. Eventually they might evolve into another project.
CM: In the meantime, I read a newspaper account of a group of students who, being lead through a lab, recognized their long-lost friend's name on a jar containing a brain. This young man had died in an automobile accident, and his parents believed he'd been buried with his organs intact. It was around this time that Ben's and my deadline loomed. I then wrote a poem that spoke to the title Ben and I had originally conceived. He provided his astounding image in response.
BK: I'd been working on the image of kudzu that appears on the back of the poster throughout the process and felt like this was still working, but I jettisoned the Jesus mug-shots for good. During the time we'd been collaborating, I'd also been doing composite photographs using masks that I've made, and had started to think of them as a back up plan. At this point it seemed like this kind of image would make a much better fit. I don't know how apparent it will be for others, but for me it does somehow encapsulate many of the ideas Cate and I explored along the way.
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