The Chinese Whispers Collaborators Gathering

Shelley Fitzgibbons' book - each artist got only a snippet of the words "Chinese Whispers". Isn't it great?

You might remember that for all of last year, and early this year, I was involved in a book collaboration - Chinese Whispers. Twelve artists, twelve books, and twelve individual 'whispers'. All we had to go on was the page from the previous artist, and try to guess at the 'theme' for each book. 

It was great fun - but excruciating, because we couldn't share with each other, and I couldn't share here, with you, either!

Jen Conde's Book was constructed with a Turkish Map Fold - intricate and wonderful!

So, it's exciting to finally be able to give you all a tiny glimpse into the things we worked on...

Kim Burling's Book - a series of CD covers - innovative!

Kristin Mountjoy's lettergrams on the left, Peta Lloyd's book pages in centre front and Nanette Balchin's book in centre back. All delightful. 

My book - coptic bound Cowboys and Indians.

Another shot of Peta's pages, all opened out....

And, this really is a tiny glimpse! We had a fabulous weekend together, catching up, sharing books - we even found time to make a set of Artists Trading Cards each!

"W" is for Whispers!

And, of course....laughed and had a lot of fun!

This group of artists has become a special kind of family for me, some of us met for the first time - after having worked on one another's books for over a year - just recently when we got together to unveil our completed books, and reveal the mysteries of our themes. To find yourself amongst such encouraging, enthusiastic and accepting souls is a wonderful gift! Thank you to all of the Chinese Whispers Collaborators -  I've learned, grown and stretched with, and because of you all. And, a particularly special thank you to Peta, who herds us all in the right direction and keeps things humming along - with gentle reminders and awe inspiring organization!

The most exciting part is that it's not over! We are nutting out the details of our next collaborative effort - "Two Tin Cans and a Piece Of String". You can expect to see more of that here next year, when we once again begin to fill one another's mailboxes with colourful parcels full of energy and artistic explorations!