BAC Artist Collaboration with Terry Tsu and Hilary Sheehan

Before I go into the artist collaboration with Hilary Sheehan and Terry Tsu, let's get into the origin story of this merry band of artists from the Bay Area.

We all met when we found out that we would be doing our artist residency at Jen Tough gallery in Santa Fe at the same week in October last year. You can read more about our adventures in one of my previous posts. While we were happily working in our own studios and mingling with the other artists in residency we formed a bond as fellow Bay Area artists. At some point during our residency, Hilary coined the term "BAC" for our group. We were forever known as BAC or the Bay Area Contingent.

We stayed in touch and kept on saying that we should really get together and do some sort of collaboration. So, after many moons, we pinned down a date for our first reunion and our first attempt at an artist collaboration. As it turned out, it was a wonderful experiment in many ways: different personalities, varied experiences, different styles, mediums and goals. But despite these differences, we quickly formed into a harmonious group of artists.

Warm up - Portraits

Since this is a serious craft, we obviously needed to warm up! So for our warm ups we started out with some gestural portraits. Draw one of the other artists in under 1 minute. That brought a lot of laughter and got the creativity going.

Collaborative piece #1 - Untitled

With the initial round of warm ups wrapped up and on the wall, we decided to be a little bit bold and jump in on one of Terry's unfinished piece pinned on her wall. Off we went, a touch here, a scribble to the tune of some good 80's music in the background. Stroke after stroke we added and quickly the piece began to take shape. In the end we are all pleased with the "finished" canvas and our first bit of collaborative work.

Now that we were on a roll, we decided we are ready to start fresh, with a clean sheet, literally. With Hilary getting the ball rolling, we eagerly add our marks, colors, shapes, lines, collages until... we ran out of time and we were  forced to call it a day.

Still a work in progress, Untitled #2

Being a figurative artist this was a totally new experience for me. It was daunting, filled with uncertainty but exciting and fun because I had no idea where this was going to take me. I enjoyed the experience and hope that we can do more of these wonderful collaborations!

Your BAC artists, satisfied after a day's shift

In my own work I will stick to my figurative, imaginative realism. but who knows... after all, I am still evolving as an artist.

Christine