Collaboration in the Arts

In this mini-series on art, I've looked at where designers fit in as artists, the misconception that artists never finish their art, how craft relates to art, and the misconception that art primarily occurs as inspiration rather than skilled work. Finally, in this post I am looking at how collaboration works in the arts. 

Let's start with the misconception. When most people think "artist," they think of a person working alone on a project from start to finish. While many artists (especially visual artists) work this way, it is an extremely narrow vision of how artists make art. 

There are several types of artistic collaboration: collaboration between members of a group or collaboration between groups, but also immediate, back-and-forth, and pass-off styles of collaboration. (I'm just making up these terms to describe types of collaboration I have seen in the arts.) Collaboration between members of a group that is an immediate style can look like dancers practicing and refining a piece or like an improvised live performance; the feedback from collaborators occurs in real time. Collaboration between groups is the basis of most theatre productions. Lighting designers, scenic designers, directors, choreographers, etc. collaborate, usually in a back-and-forth style that involves a series of production meetings and emails, to create several designs (e.g. costume design) that all mesh together as a whole. Immediate style means the collaborators are in the same room while they work; back-and-forth means that collaborators meet to share progress. 

Pass-off collaboration is more linear. It looks like an artistic director selecting a play script and hiring a group of artists. Then the director (different role from artistic director) creates a concept for the show and sends it to the team. Then the set designer designs a set based on the script and the concept. Then the lighting designer takes the script, concept, and set design and designs the lighting. Many theaters use a more back-and-forth style, but I have seen linear style used as often if not more. In the case of linear style, usually someone on the back-end has collaborate using another style. In this case, the scenic artist and the assistant lighting designer might go back-and-forth about the exact colors to make sure that the realized production looks as good as possible. [Sometimes, these back-end collaborators aren't considered artists, like electricians or carpenters. This is where the arts vs. crafts debate results in the technical workers of theatre being devalued and underpaid even though they make artistic decisions all the time (usually small ones that promote cohesiveness of the production). I left this out of the last post, but wanted to clarify that artistic misconceptions do have real financial consequences.]

Why bring up collaboration? Two reasons. One, I want to point out the misconception of the solo artist. Even in the visual arts, many large works are produced by groups even if they are designed by one person. Often the collaborators are uncredited, as is the case in Renaissance art where a master painter had a number of apprentices working on a piece. We need to get over the solo genius myth. It applies to like two people in history. Everyone else had help. 

The second reason is that artistic collaboration looks a whole lot like how board games get made, even in the case of a solo designer. The designer passes the game off to the publisher, who sends it to the graphic artist and illustrator. This results in either linear or back-and-forth collaboration. 

The reason I wrote this mini-series on art is to argue that board game design is art. The only reason I can think of that would make designers believe otherwise is that they have a number of misconceptions about what art-making looks like, especially in a professional context. I believe that in order for the industry to continue to develop, we need to examine our place as entertainment (i.e. art) makers. We could learn a lot from our fellow artists, but we need to recognize them as peers first.