The Elusive Beast of Collaboration

I’ve been thinking about a thought experiment with my favourite animal, the elephant.

Take a group of people, and blindfold them. Lead them to an elephant. And, through what they can touch and recognise, tell us what an elephant is.

In the ancient world, removed from photographs, in the realm of possibility and exploration, where the Form of something isn’t told to you, the unaware rely on the basics. Tactile sensation, literally what they can touch.

But, exactly. You see right away how alone they don’t get the full image of the elephant. One feels the trunk. One gets flicked by a small brushy tail. Another feels the ivory tusk.

Working with other people gives me that feeling. As a species with an incredible capacity to learn, hundreds of trades, tens of thousands of disciplines, you realise just how small your grasp and focus of the immediate is.

Words are what I’m trying to make my life. Beyond training, family and friends, it’s my hobby, my passion, and a growing career. But take me to the music hall. Do I read the lyrics? Yes, those I can follow. But I’ve seen my best friend tell me about the exact kind of strings he prefers. Strings rust with sweat. You need to keep them fresh. I had no idea about this, that obvious business cost, a literal “sweat and tears” example, and I don’t know the first thing about playing just one instrument. This isn’t accounting for the band, or the marketing, the cohesion, camaraderie, or the science and art of something being recognised in a second which can move you or force you to switch it off.

An artistic collaboration I’m very devoted to has shown me how visual art can bleed together into imagery that’s entirely free of words, or somehow notice my written input have an influence on ink and paper. I’m learning, and in a year, two, five I feel I will know more. It’s a deep journey, and I’ve found the reality of wisdom saying you are only beginning to achieve something when you become aware of how little you know.

It is being blindfolded, working with someone. A good thing, a new creation is something you find going in blind at once stage, the pre-planning stage, the instinctive stage, and when it comes together without even realising it. And in their own way, I suppose people working with me have their own blindfolds. They can’t read my mind or know what I’ll do next, and I do like that as much as I long to communicate connection and understanding (which I think many writers do).

Patting my way around the behemoth that is art, and from it finding imagery, symbolism, honing the presentation of this site, and working soon to bring my first great paper work for you is as unknown as it is exciting. I can feel it. I can sense how huge it is, and in time and with help, I’ll get the blindfold off and chuckle at what the real thing is.

Stay posted. Because you’ll see that behemoth with more clarity than I, and what’s being made is as much for you reading this as anyone else in the world.