Groups

Nat’s first guest blog…

So this morning (afternoon for Nat), he asked me if I wanted to be one of his first guest bloggers on here. Is this his first? I read back a little ways until I found him asking for guest bloggers, so maybe I am the first on this one. I thought that it made sense to write about what got him to ask me. See, I live in the states (I met Nat in college) and I just moved to a new city. Philadelphia. Birthplace of the Nation – or whatever.

As a wannabe artist myself, one of the things I’m really hoping to find here is a group I can work with artistically. I’m really jealous of this group of comic book artists out in St. Louis, Missouri called U.S.S. Catastrophe. They have this thing where they get together every Thursday for pizza and then go to Barnes & Nobel to draw together until they get kicked out. Pretty great, in my opinion. I’m ultra jealous and want to find something like that for myself. It’s managed to involve into more than that, too, but just the camaraderie and shared work alone is enough to send me into fits of envy.

The idea got cooked up when I first heard about Fort Thunder in Providence, Rhode Island. I don’t even know where to begin with talking about Fort Thunder, they were so awesome. Basically, this one guy rented a warehouse so he could live in it and use the big, open first floor as a music space, and his art school friends moved into them and they became one of the coolest groups of printers, costume makers, musicians and comix artists in the country (until the city let a developer tear the building they’d been renting down – of course).

So I got this idea in my head to try to figure out a way to get my hands on a building here in Philly and do the same thing. I don’t know how I’ll do it since I’m making snot moneywise here in Philly, but maybe I can figure out some community development angle? Eventually, I should be pretty plugged in politically in this town and I should know it pretty well, too. We’ll see.

I guess the exciting thing is that I recently learned that there already is a space somewhat like that here in Philly, called 1801 Howard. The artists there live together and have studio space and I guess they are looking into some group shows soon, too. Maybe even more of it is going on here? I don’t know yet. We’re at Day 10 in Philadelphia. But it makes me optimistic about the do’ability of it.

Collaboration is pretty damn exciting – that’s all I know. I could go on about other fun things I’ve heard about but I think you get my drift. The hard part is finding other artists are finding other artists who will actually follow through. This has been especially hard for me as non-professional. Any advice from others out there about where to look would be welcome.

And any other great stories about great group collaborations going on now would also be encouraging to hear.