collaboration

Extending Origins © Andrea Bartley/kjm

For the past month, I've been working on a collaborative project with Andrea Bartley, a talented and driven first-year photography student at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Andrea is fortunate to be in a class of select freshmen taught by Jason Yi and Lynn Tomaszewski. As part of the class, students were paired with local artists to create a collaborative piece, which was displayed Friday night during a one-night event at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

We were asked to address the idea, "Does the person define the space, or does the space define the person?" At our first meeting, Andrea talked about the dramatic change from her mostly rural hometown to living in downtown Milwaukee. So we chose to address those two places, and the people from her past and present. It was exciting to tread on new ground - neither of us had worked collaboratively, or worked on video. The 4:18 minute video contains photos that were shot both in Zionsville, Indiana and Milwaukee - Andrea made the portraits and I shot the skies.