Two Cans on a String – works between Maria Phillips and Sarah Turner

Artist list

Maria Phillips, Sarah Turner

to sustain -

When the opportunity arose to create an exhibition together, it seemed like a natural extension of collaborations we were already involved in. We had spent the previous year meeting about and in Michigan as part of a guest teaching project we were sharing. Because each of us builds a professional life that juggles teaching with our own studio work, having a collaboration that was first teaching and is now making mirrors perfectly the balance we each try to strike.

to pool -

In both situations, we value that by working together emphasis is placed on the process – suspending predetermined outcomes or goals for the work (process can be an over-used and unduly precious word in our field – for this exhibition, our focus was on the back and forth exchange of ideas and variations, thinking and re-thinking). Of course, conversation and written exchange is part of it, but we have prioritized a physical and image exchange to allow us to develop how we articulate our ideas to another person through material and composition.

WWSD? WWMD?

Through this, the method has become one of anticipating, proposing and replying, rather then declaring (as we might have done in our own individual work). Making with another in mind reminds us of how many possibilities are available and lets us relinquish ownership or attachments to any one interpretation. Naturally, such a method can only work when there is confidence and respect for the other person’s work and ways. The flip side of this confidence is fear – the fear of not holding up one’s end of the bargain or of letting the other person down. An excellent motivator, this apprehension requires us to push ourselves because we want the best from the other person.

to resource -

At the same time, there is the comfort and reassurance of knowing that we are not alone in our studios with only our own preoccupations and resources – someone at the other side of the country is suggesting and countering our ideas in their own ways. And of course, there is the delight in receiving a box in the mail, full of possibilities to be realized.



Maria Phillips
Sarah Turner
October 2007