Bi-coastal Art!

My friend, Libby Ellis, and I are starting a new collaborative art project.

Libby lives on Martha's Vineyard (currently under 4 or 5 feet of snow) and I am in California. We had been talking about doing a project together for a while and on a recent trip to L.A. we came up with this!

Each week for 16 weeks, Libby will send me 5 photographs.

I will choose one and paint it. After Libby sees the image, she sends me a new batch of 5.

After some debate, we decided I can't crop her image.

Photograph by Libby Ellis

Painting by Kalen Meyer

This is our week one. When Libby sent her images, I knew immediately the one I would paint, however the image was so much more abstract than anything I usually work with, I was a little daunted!

I sent the image to Libby while she was on a call, and when she called back she said, 

"Wait, is this a painting I am looking at, or the photograph?" (it was on her phone), which brings up the question, why paint when you have the image already?

After digesting the fact this was my painting, we both got fairly excited about going on.

Stay tuned for week two!