In October of 2008, the Studio Sunday artist collective got together to discuss working on a collaborative project. We were all recently-graduated art college students with little direction and even smaller quantities of inspiration. To get ourselves out of this rut, we decided that we were going to make a cohesive exhibit of artwork together, and that it was going to be the most awesome thing to rock the Midwest since beer, brats and sauerkraut. Since we all had a common, deeply-rooted interest in the art of storytelling, we decided to write an original fairy tale and base our exhibit on the wonderful prose that burst forth from our imaginations. Since I have a knack for organizing things and rallying people, I was volunteered to be the Project manager for our collaborative endeavor.

Objectives

  • Initiate story-writing process via random words and phrases written on sticky notes
  • Enable the collective decision of building a full-scale installation based on the story
  • Start and maintain a blog that documented the installation’s progress.
  • Book a local gallery to host the installation
  • Make 3D blueprints of the gallery space in Google Sketchup
  • Complete 12 full-color digital paintings
  • Co-write and edit the prose of the story
  • Format the graphic novel that accompanied the exhibit
  • Set goals and manage deadlines for all of the artists
  • Publicize the show’s opening and closing nights
  • Orchestrate construction of installation and provide assistance with mural painting, wall-building, site-specific sculpture work, etc.

Needless to say, it was quite a bit to chew. The “project” quickly evolved into an “installation” and, finally, an became “exhibit”. We were going to build a full-scale installation that allowed the viewer to travel through the story as if they were the protagonist. We planned, we experimented with media, and we all did things that we did not go to school for in order to bring this project to fruition. Then came the caveat: due to some scheduling conflicts with the particular gallery that we booked to host the installation, we had nine months to complete the entire exhibit.

Go Time.

At the end of the project, we decided to make the prose of the story available for free so promote sales of the graphic novel.