Flame Affinity Group Meeting Notes: Collaboration

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

GEEX Flame Affinity Group
Collaboration
March 3, 2022 7pm EST
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith

Notes compiled by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith.
Entries in quotes are copied directly from the chat. 
Each bullet point represents a comment by a participant. 
Italic headings indicate off-topic conversation threads.

What is the role of collaboration in your practice?
  • To put together large projects
  • To share skill sets
  • To make work that is beyond the scope of one artist’s ability to make
  • Collaboration through teaching
  • To make things I don’t feel comfortable making myself as a new artist
  • Access to complementary skill sets 
  • To gain access to a new market
  • In teaching, collaborate on one big piece
  • Conscious, consensual agreement with someone else who has a different background/skill set/cultural context, etc. and it’s something we agree to bring to the table intentionally
  • Collaboration does not have a predetermined result
  • Collaboration is about creating something that could never be done by one person
  • Collaboration generates new knowledge
  • Collaboration makes me feel very small, on the scale of the universe, and I like that
  • I usually collaborate with scientists, making art science work.
  • Started flameworking to work solo, as a compliment to working collaboratively in the hot shop or teaching
  • Collaboration can be intimidating and style might not mesh well
  • Looking for different perspectives on how to enter into a collaboration
  • Interested in the networking technique within the realm of flameworking and what it allows for metaphors of networking and community building to do
  • Collaborative flameworking project – invite non-flameworkers to add to a networked form using map gas torches to build structures that are not predetermined
  • To access the space glassmaking creates where people can talk about differences
  • Use flameworking for collaboration because it is more accessible than glassblowing.
  • Collaborative community building through beadmaking
  • Collaboration is a huge part of the glass pipe industry
  • What I get from collaboration is learning – flameworking can be a solitary activity, when I work with others my work and skills progress with insight from other people. 
  • Social media and market cross pollination resulting from collaboration, can help to build an audience.
  • Find someone in a different studio to collaborate with and make two pieces, one for each of you
  • Working with artists who cannot make pieces they want and hire a glassmaker to do it for them
  • Interesting to jump into someone else’s head, taking yourself out of your comfort zone.
  • Collaboration between different types of glassmaking, e.g combining furnace- and lathe-working
  • Collaborating between science and art 
  • Maybe collaboration can lead to bringing down walls between glassmaking disciplines. 
  • R&D as a collaborative communal contribution to the field
  • Collaborating for efficiency in one’s practice, and/or hiring subcontractors for fabrication.
  • Flameworking is solitary art form for me and collaboration is an opportunity to connect with people
  • Collaboration through performance
  • Relying on other bodies to be part of a vision, give someone a role and ask them to help me create a vision
  • Using collaboration to explore relationships in glassmaking
  • Collab with a chamber music group and flameworking (musical composition based on the act of flameworking and making glass musical instruments)
  • Having the opportunity to work with people I love 
  • Collaboration makes me work outside my comfort zone and try things that maybe I wouldn’t have otherwise felt were within my area of experience in life.
  • Scientific glassblowing in the aerospace industry, collaboration that has to do with engineering, bringing skills together to make the product work. (ex. bring in a welding specialist)
  • Learning opportunities to learn from people with different skills. 
  • We all bring something to the table!
  • Consider how we are going to edit or veto our designs so that we each have a stake in the project that feels fair before starting the collaboration. 
  • CAD: good place for collaborative sketching and for communicating about design
  • Collaborating through a mentoring group put together to set goals. 
  • Collaborate with others on materials or supplies. And the end results are shared. Ex: making pattern bars
  • Being in a group studio or a university can lend itself to collaborations
  • As an educator, collaboration is fruitful when teaching with another artist who is totally different and we have to figure out how to work together outside my discipline. Looking outside the glass world to collaborate. 
  • Collab can bring me out of my comfort zone
  • Collaboration to be playful and try something new to access a mindset that is helpful in manifesting the next moves in life and to access happiness. 
  • Group projects in teaching to encourage collaboration and working together to develop skills and make something bigger conceptually.
  • Rented studio time with a group of people and just had fun. 
  • Make an instrument and then everyone plays together in an orchestra. 
  • You can make career long friends through collaboration. 
  • Collaboration in the form of a response video.
  • Releasing something open source with the hopes of others iterating on the design as a form of collaboration
  • Duets on TikTok (side by side videos)
  • Technology can be part of collaboration, especially in the cyberspace sphere. 
  • Making a composition inspired by the process of flameworking
  • Sometimes I feel like it’s equal, and other times there’s a hierarchy.
  • “Giving over control over your own work is scary”
  • “Collaboration helps me feel appropriately small” 
  • “Because I have a background in STEM, there’s a perspective that I have about collaboration that is one of R&D, where knowledge is shared and built upon to further the field. A lot of my practice is research on materials and techniques that others can then use for their own practice. It’s not a kind of collaboration where it’s between people, but it’s more of a communal contribution to the field.”
  • “Collaboration as a learning opportunity, exposure to new techniques”
  • “Collaboration as exposure to a new audience”
  • “So collaboration can incorporate a lot of risk, not just with letting go of control, but also choosing to use time to “play” instead of “work” (on the clock) … but I love playing. Play time should be incorporated into the budget”
↳ Exploring the role of collaboration in fabrication, subcontracting and consulting
  • “Do we and is it useful to differentiate between collaboration as knowledge building and collaboration as subcontracting (jobbing, outsourcing, fabrication support, etc. whatever the preferred terminology)?”
  • When I work as a fabricator for other artists, I do not consider that collaboration.
  • In collaboration, I share authorship with the other entities in the group. 
  • In fabrication I am paid to execute someone else’s vision, and I am performing a job. 
  • I have to negotiate the specifics every time BEFORE I enter into a collaboration with another artist or fabrication client: division of labor, authorship, and intellectual property, in addition to payment. 
  • In fabrication, I am paid when the glassblowing is complete, regardless of whether the work sells or not. Work is passed on to the client to do what they want with it. 
  • I get paid up front as a fabricator but not (yet) as an artist. 
  • In fabrication I ask for a sketch to make sure I understand what’s in their head. 
  • When you start getting into big projects it’s important to communicate. 
  • Consulting in relation to collaboration/fabrication
  • Consulting gives me access to high paid jobs, and allows access to Silicon valley. 
  • Consulting with professionals gives me experience for my resume so I can make more money. 
  • Make different resumes for different opportunities
  • For consulting you need to know yourself, your capabilities and what you’ll charge for it, and what the other person is looking for out of the consultation. 
  • Sometimes clients don’t necessarily know the limits of the material and production limitations to ask the right questions in a consultation. 
  • It was humbling finding out about what my shortcomings were while doing commission work. 
  • Free half hour for consulting, charge a rate for additional time.
  • Two different resumes needed – one for Consulting and for Art Activities
  • Show your artwork off a little more, and maybe the engineers will respect it more once they see what you can do. 
  • I hide my fabrication work with a hidden link on my art website
  • Outside work $70 to $110/hr, includes private lessons, $40 to $64/hr in house fabrication.
  • Most preliminary consultations are complimentary — charge hourly to do the work
  • Client asked me to sign an NDA before telling me anything about the project
  • Being conscious of paying people for their time
  • “I was wondering that too. It can also highlight disparities, when someone holds more knowledge and power, and uses the “exchange of knowledge” as payment that might not suffice for someone’s years of experience or skill level etc. Without focusing too much on the negatives, I have heard of a lot of “collaborative” experiences leaving one party disappointed. My other note on this is getting to a point where you are personally financially stable enough to hire people, while growing yourself”
  • “I ask for CAD renderings”
  • In the hiring vs collaborating distinction, there is also consulting which can be something a little different from both.
↳ Examples of collaboration
How do you negotiate a collaboration? Is it freeform? Do you have a contract? Is it like a duet? Are you making a body of work?
  • I haven’t made an object in collaboration, for me it’s mostly performance, or music, it’s often freeform and I have the ownership. 
  • Connected on IG after following each other’s work and then collaborated IRL
  • I send my collaborator parts and they get worked into larger pieces, we split it 50/50. 
  • Negotiate the price split up front, be sure to advocate for yourself regarding what your time and skills are worth. 
  • In pipes, it is generally understood that it’s a 50/50 split. 
  • Find out how much your prep is worth and make sure you get that – you can price out your prep individually and maybe your collaborator will need to up their price to accommodate that, which is a good thing for you both. 
  • Is skill level a factor in collaboration?
  • Commission split according to who had more IG followers, value of social media audience is considered. Value of marketing is factored in. 
  • Using creative commons and open source licenses for negotiating collaboration. 
  • I use creative commons licensing to make open source tools designs for the resource exchange. 
  • “I think about how you brand yourself, and also if people know your situation.”
  • “As a personal example, I hired a filmmaker to film and edit a video for me. It was a collaborative process, and I give her credit when I share it/show the film. But I consider that I have overall creative control and ownership of the work. (As just one example)”
  • “Collabricator (TM)”
  • “A friend of mine traveled to, and collaborated with a new friend, to then be told they would only receive 30/70 when the piece sold due to their lack of skill. Just wondering how we can avoid these sorts of situations “
  • “Do the $ negotiation up front and over email so you have a paper trail.”
  • “Contracts protect both parties, if it’s a big project don’t be afraid to make a contract. It can be simple. “
  • “Beginners can be more subject to this kind of unfair treatment when things are not as upfront“
  • “Maybe not specific to just glass, but there are mechanisms like “Creative Commons” or “Open Source” licenses where one can release something that is implicitly intended for collaboration. This might be something tangential to what we’re talking about, but I feel like it could be an interesting model for modes of negotiating collaboration… especially when you’re dealing with a form of knowledge.”
  • “It should be 50/50 because a lot of it has to do with the “name”
How do collaborations start? If there’s someone you’re interested in collaborating with, how do you approach them?
  • Mostly I just hit up my friends because approaching strangers on the internet is scary. 
  • I try to get to know the person I want to collaborate with to get into the other person’s head in order to come up with something weird. 
  • I like to seek out artists doing something completely different from me and find common ground. 
  • What platforms do you use for collaboration? Have you ever met/not met someone you’ve collaborated with?
  • “Anyone feel free to contact me to collaborate… also looking for mentorship.”
  • “Someone to collaborate on making graphite molds!”
  • “I want to see more flameworkers collaborating with institutions.”

BACK TO TOP

LINK TO RESOURCE (GOOGLE DOC)

Last updated: 3/28/22