Two Heads are Better Than One, Especially if the Other is Arlette’s

I wouldn’t out right say I don’t like working in groups. This is because I have the perception of myself as a team player, in certain instances, but really, for the most part, I find I end up severely frustrated. Even if it is unanimously agreed what the outcome will be, something always goes wrong in the planning and delegating of the steps for development. This is the case, in my experience, for creative group projects- when you’re working with a bunch of people that have similar working processes or skills, yet completely different styles. I try to avoid these situations.On the flip side, when I found someone that clicks with my working method and practice, this meant the outcome results doubly strong, and even better, doubly fast. This is what happens when I work with Arlette. Most people that share a relationship with someone like this know what a mean, the ideas merge into stronger concepts while simultaneously reassuring each other their vital role in the partnership. It also establishes more concrete work from the individual side as each person acts to push the other (to their artistic) limit. I’ve worked with Arlette now on five collaborations, installations and one… more sculptural. The one we’ve just completed moves us forward from the direction we started out in Berlin, making large scale standing 2-d memorials.

This time our adventure was based in an abandoned house in Southold surrounded by flocks of sheep and birds that made more noise than the A4 behind Park Road North. We spent 4 and a bit hours navigating towards Suffolk in her boyfriend’s hovercraft (which I think is an ’82 Citroen). Arlette drove the whole way, there and back, because I don’t drive on “the other side of the road” and also because I conveniently didn’t realise Felix’s car was American style with the wheel on the left hand side, whoops…Working with someone on projects together also is good because you’re less scared when you’re in abandoned cottages in the middle of nowhere, miles away from home when you could have picked from hundreds of derelict places right near where you live. And when your cold and can’t feel your hands, they’ll tell you to wait and make sure to photograph the detail of the broken glass for texture while they get another shot on the tri-pod. And mostly that works, and you get good texture and the photographs from the tri-pod are fantastic, even though it was heavy and awkward to carry. And you love your proposal in the end… and have a really good time.