Collaborative Projects

I have been an admirer of Frankie Brackley Tolman for many years. Her works as a visual artist are in response to the ever changing beauty of her surroundings in rural New Hampshire. We share these surroundings. Inspired by her paintings, I decided to undertake a collaborative project, integrating her paintings with music and film.  

I began this project in the spring of 2017 by filming one of Frankie’s paintings, Gardening in the Rain. I was attracted to this work because of it’s large splashes of color which jumped from the canvas. This effect was created by the large amount of open canvas, free space, surrounding the flowers; splashes of vivid colors especially yellow. This imagery led me to film the field in front of our home, bursting with the perennial springtime daffodils naturalized throughout the landscape.

Experimenting with these two videos, merging the clips from Frankie’s canvas with those of the daffodils, inanimate images with the living flowers, exciting possibilities came into focus. As I continued to explore various video editing techniques, Frankie and I drafted ideas for our teamwork, and thought of “Double Image.” This reflected the effect observed in the film when her painting was merged with the daffodils. It also was a statement of shared connections, personally and through our art.

This collaboration has evolved into four works: Sonata in G for Piano, 4 Seasons for Solo Harp, Forest Fantasy, and Streaming.

In the fall of 2023 my newest video compositions, Forest Fantasy and Streaming, were featured alongside a selection of Frankie’s work in the show Double Image. You can learn more about the show here.