What does it mean to be left-brained? “The theory is that people are either left-brained or right-brained, meaning that one side of their brain is dominant. If you're mostly analytical and methodical in your thinking, you're said to be left-brained. If you tend to be more creative or artistic, you're thought to be right-brained.” Health Line
I don’t believe that I’m a creative who fits a mold, certainly my personality draws from both sides at certain points. I’m pretty methodical and prefer things to make sense. I hate to admit this but I’m not that easy going and it takes a bit for me to adjust to change, I have worked hard to refine the specific aspects of my craft and prefer things to be in their place neatly. Although all the engineers in my life would most defintly contest that!
Considering all the above, over the years when my creative friends or books I’ve read suggested to ‘visualize’ the outcomes that I want in my creative career the analytical side was always a skeptic. This year I opened up my business and myself to accepting printing projects, providing printing services and working on collaborative projects.
Although I never advertised, I opened my mind to the possibility (one could say visualized it). In response to that my year, thus far, has been filled with incredible opportunities and I’ve met and worked with artists, organizations and designers from across Canada. Then at the beginning of the year Alyssa Terpstra, the principle designer of Coco & Jack, a full-service interior design studio from Ontario – reached out through social media!
For this project I was given the creative freedom to design a micro collection of fabrics in collaboration with and for the Coco & Jack brand. Alyssa provided the inspiration and direction along with her preferred colourways. I understood from our initial consultation that she wanted the finished prints to have a textured appearance much like block printing.
So in the spirit of the inspiration and mood provided by Coco & Jack, it was only natural that I explored block printing to start. I took time to enjoy the creative play which is such an important part of the process and this in turn informed a slew of patterns which I could easily continue to add too. From that point I developed a selection of prints, Alyssa selected her favourites, suggested some revisions and then we settled on four final patterns to print on cloth.
Collaboration is such an important part of my experience as an artist and designer. It provides an opportunity to share and I believe this rounds out my creative practice and encourages me to push my work in new directions. To find out more about collaboration and our custom printing services contact us here.