A Charming Exchange

KELLY SNELLING and RUTH RAE

The art we create is an expression of who we are and how we see the world. The seeds of inspiration for an artist can come from one thousand things in an average day: flowers in the garden, the family dog, the evening news, or even silence. An artist's gift is to be able to magically create something from nothing, to turn a dream into a piece of art. And most artists do this all alone.

With the growing number of online art groups, we discovered that this cloistered regimen doesn't have to be the only way. Even if you live in a tiny town devoid of an artist community, you have the entire world at your fingertips to collaborate with you.

For A Charming Exchange , we called upon more than thirty immensely talented mixed media and jewelry artists from North America , Europe , and Australia to create charms and jewelry elements, which would in turn be used to produce unified collaborative art/jewelry pieces.

Here's an example of how one such collaboration worked: A group of five artists each created a themed necklace or bracelet with a limited number of elements. The piece could be made from any desired materials as long as they could be fairly easily found and didn't require a torch. Then, each piece would rotate through the mail to the next artist (hence the limited number of original elements) who would add her own style to the jewelry while celebrating the inspiration of the original creator.

As the process progressed, it became a delicate balance of knowing when to create something new to add to the piece and when to merely embellish what was already there. The collaborative project was a fantastic opportunity to see the amazing handiwork of original artists up close and to be stimulated and inspired by it. The end results of this extraordinary endeavor are bursting with excitement and creative electricity. Collaborating is a fabulous way to boost your artistic skills, find new inspiration, and propel your imagination. And, it's also outrageously fun.