When does 1+1=12? When two people collaborate on an art project for 12 months.

My wife Melissa and I have both been experiencing creative block for some time. It would be easy to blame parenthood, but we know this isn’t the only thing keeping us from creating new work. Yesterday we both took the day off and visited Milwaukee Art Museum for some inspiration. While we walked through the Bradley Gallery we found part of the exhibit closed and the furniture that was in that space was in the open, central area of the modern wing of this gallery.

We sat for about an hour on an elegant, low-slung modernist sofa, brainstormed and came up with a couple of projects to collaborate on. We came up with a list of 12 words, each one will be the theme of a monthly experimental video project. Each of our 12 words has multiple meanings, often each word as nouns, verbs and adjectives. We’ll both start with our own disciplines, me music & sound design and her the visual elements, compare what we have and let the music drive what the visuals will be.

We’ll announce the first of these projects in a few days and give a fuzzy deadline for completion. My plan is to use my Soundcloud account to let you hear my sketches as I develop the sound designs and music for each piece. I don’t know if Melissa will do the same on Youtube or Vimeo.

We’ve also started pre-production on a large-scale installation series, themed to the four natural elements. These pieces will be full-room, multimedia installations. Lots of tech, sound, music and video elements, as well as 3-D art and paintings. Yes, pretty ambitious. But that’s how we roll whenever we work together.