Tim Johnson Gretchen Wachs
What began as a day with two artists playing around on a joint painting, just for fun, has bloomed into a frequent exercise, with enlightening and surprising results along the way. We might argue, that two heads are indeed better than one in these painting sessions. Our finished works are unique to the partnership, as they are not paintings that we would arrive at on our own. We paint simultaneously, only pausing occaisionally to discuss direction and flow. We paint over previous marks made by the other, if senses tell us to do so. At other times, we compliment a well placed brush stoke. We have good days, we have bad days, like all artisans. However, the dynamic is rewarding. The egos on both ends must meet in a central place, one of compromise dancing with boldness, subtle and soft, sharing the stage with stark and heavy. We do apply the reins as needed, but the beauty in the exercise is the world that opens up that we have never seen before. It gives us a newness, a new pasture, a place of refuge and resolved conflict, and in the end, the fulfillment of relating across the spectrum of process, with another.