A group painting session at Kaleid Gallery in San Jose. I've been working on the One Thousand Thousand project for a long, long time. In years past a big part of the process involved working with other artists to sort of push one another to do things they'd not normally/immediately consider and having other styles and techniques kind of imposed on you definitely facilitates growth. So as much as it has been a personal project it's also been a hugely collaborative effort for sure. I've roped a lot of people in to participate in the project and if you know me then chances are I've stuck a paintbrush in your hands and said to have a go at it.
There have been plenty of instances where other artists took to the project and produced a series of pieces on their own and the cool part of it is to see how it takes on a new life with them. One recent example is when I last visited my Very Good Friend Kim in St. Louis. I'd been hounding her for years to consider doing some work for the project. She was gracious enough years ago to have worked on a piece I did for my 52 Weeks project [She did Week 36 here: ] and I hoped to have her do the same for the One Thousand Thousand project.
There have been plenty of instances where other artists took to the project and produced a series of pieces on their own and the cool part of it is to see how it takes on a new life with them. One recent example is when I last visited my Very Good Friend Kim in St. Louis. I'd been hounding her for years to consider doing some work for the project. She was gracious enough years ago to have worked on a piece I did for my 52 Weeks project [She did Week 36 here: ] and I hoped to have her do the same for the One Thousand Thousand project.
#333,549 by Kim Richardson This was especially important as I had just reached the milestone of 333,333 pieces and was hoping for some shift in things after The First Third. As I saw/see it this next phase on the way to a million would almost require other work from other artists. I was getting burned out to a degree and was worried I'd end up making crummy work or repeating myself or whatever. So the Second Third seemed like a great time to kind of just be kind of a curator for the project and usher in a phase where I really sat back some and included more work that was done by other artists in contribution towards the edition. And when I was in St. Louis visiting friends and family I really ramped up my pitch with Kim. I left her with supplies and some additional pieces I'd not yet completed she agreed to give it a shot.
#333,566 by Kim and Isadora And it worked. She made some pieces using the stuff I'd left unfinished and they were terrific and she really enjoyed it and I repeatedly said, "I told you so." Since then she continues to make more pieces on her own and then one of the coolest things happened after that.
Kim and I went to high school together and we attended Visual & Performing Arts High School. We were taught by the same teacher, Mr. Perry, and we were friends since then. She's one of my favorite artists and she's one of my closest friends on top of that and I've known her daughter Isadora since she has been alive. Isadora ended up attending the same high school that Kim and I did and she was taught by the same teacher we were and now she's an artist too and is making her own new pieces for the project. Seeing this whole thing come to such an unexpectedly full circle has been heavy for me and I am seriously overjoyed to watch it unfold as it has.
Kim and I went to high school together and we attended Visual & Performing Arts High School. We were taught by the same teacher, Mr. Perry, and we were friends since then. She's one of my favorite artists and she's one of my closest friends on top of that and I've known her daughter Isadora since she has been alive. Isadora ended up attending the same high school that Kim and I did and she was taught by the same teacher we were and now she's an artist too and is making her own new pieces for the project. Seeing this whole thing come to such an unexpectedly full circle has been heavy for me and I am seriously overjoyed to watch it unfold as it has.
#334,119 by William Schaff I'm working just non-stop on preparing for the next big show in celebration of The First Third and it will be in March. I am preparing a bit of a project retrospective to show the evolution of things over the past decades and will also be featuring the new pieces done by me and by Kim and Isadora and by some others that I'm saving as sort of a surprise as the show nears. Seriously. The artists I've had do work for this project even leave me slack-jawed in disbelief and a couple of them that you already know about are the monumental collage artist Angelica Paez and my buddy the esteemed artist William Schaff. [The moment he let me in his front door I had designs on roping him into things too.] I'm too busy to really get to all of the news and announcements posted about the rest of things but I am excited to share them as time allows.
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