My colleagues initially thought I was nuts when I told them that we would be working on a collaborative painting with no theme or rules. That didn’t surprise me. Designers often have guidelines to adhere to and specific messages to communicate. But when we made collaborative art the emphasis of a recent agency hour happy hour, we were laughing, panting, and sweating within five minutes.
Collaborative art happens when a group of people simultaneously work together on one piece without any prior planning. The final piece is often constructed of several layers with remnants of the first strokes underneath, and while many people worked on it, it still looks like it was created by one artist. The exercise became popular in the mid-1980’s in Tunisia and was brought to the United States by David Black, a Fulbright scholar who learned about it while in Tunis. David Black has led Tunisian Collaborative Painting Workshops at the Art Students League since 2010.
The idea to bring this notion to the agency came to me after volunteering with kids. Putting a blank canvas in front of them helped them work together, without any hurt feelings when someone’s paint overlapped theirs. They saw that the process was natural and fun, and allowed them to create a unified piece even though everyone brought something different to the party.
The same thing happened at Agenda. At a certain point, the piece really came to life. We were standing around it, beers in hand, talking about what worked and what could be added. People would jump in, paint, and then continue the discussion. It was a great experience, and we’re ready to do it again. Luckily, we still have one more canvas.