Three Exchanges: Collaboration

w/Matt Thiesen

2010

- C. Shoup

“Matt and I went to high school together. After graduation we each left

Kankakee County to explore different cities, and eight years or so later,

under different terms, we both returned here.

“We had engaged and tasted the wider world, and back here we found

an artistically sterile environment. I don’t remember the specifics, but

we started to connect as artists. Matt had a digital video camera. We

made a few “art films.” I remember it as a time when I was involved in

a crazy, exhilarating creative process. We went so far as to film a

donated and preserved sea turtle shell traveling around Salina and

Essex Townships; another time we spent a chilly autumn afternoon

filming guitar improvisations inside an abandoned mental hospital.

“Three Exchanges involved a completely different process. I liked one of

Matt’s paintings; he gave it to me. Then after a few months, I drew on

it, gave it back to him, and we began to exchange the original piece and

add to it, uninhibited by any rules or directions about what we were

doing or what outcome we would achieve…”

The Day Danny Fought the Storm; 2004

Turtle Shell; 2005

Manteno Mental Hospital; 2006

Film Stills

“Places was the first exchange with Matt. The painting started as the

blue background and the color buildup in the upper right area. On a

whim, I drew the iron tower, sent it back to Matt, he added the nurse,

the word “places” and after a few more weeks of exchanges, this piece

landed on my doorstep with Matt’s final submission. He had “painted”

a hideous, juvenile, sloppy drunken mess in the middle.

“Anyway, I set it against the wall and looked at it for a week, and

eventually saw Matt’s mess as tentacles somehow growing from the

blue background. I blended oils until I matched the original background

color to define the final octopi arms, and I used a gold paint marker to

harness the wayward dark smudges.

“There is balance around the perimeter, a concentration of interacting

images, circles set in motion, and even a gouged out, pure black

“entrance” into this piece. Our unlearned and spontaneous

composition works.”

Places, 2010

Acrylic, oil, pen, wood, mixed

media on masonite panel.

“This piece was exchanged only once. I framed an oak panel in walnut.

Onto it I painted the black tree and the blue and white organic shapes.

“I didn’t consider it finished—but didn’t know where else to go, so I

dropped it off at Matt’s.

“A week later it reappeared on my doorstep. Included now was a solid

horizon, a creeping combine, an ominous barn and silo, and a strange

dried up plant.

“It was such a fascinating composition, and I had the good fortune of

recognizing (immediately) that it was finished.

“This is a supreme collaboration.”

Modern Agriculture, 2010

Oil, acrylic, mixed media on

oak panel.

“Matt—being Matt—ultimately lost interest

in the art exchange process after the second

piece—but I insisted we complete three.

“He had salvaged an old baking board from

the alley, added the mixed media, and then

apparently during some hallucinatory

moment of ecstasy, poured paint across the

upper edge, and dropped it off at my house,

saying: “I don’t like it. Do whatever you

want.”

“I challenged myself to create a narrative

atop this background. The archer is made

of slivers saved from my framing stock. The

three “mini framed” color squares are

heavy canvas covers from old library books.

This is the story of an ancient hunter.”

Overview; details from the back of The Archer.

The Archer, 2010

Acrylic, mixed media, wood, bamboo,

glass, canvas book covers on masonite.