Life Blood

On artistic collaboration.

"Many serious writers and visual artists benefit most from a virtual dialogue that doesn't require a computer—an ongoing mental conversation with a loved one, dead or alive, who 'fosters the psychological courage that can feed creativity,' as Barron puts it. It's important, she notes, 'to have a supportive, trusted, loving other in your life, whether it is someone you hold onto in your heart and head or someone in the flesh—even if they are not directly involved in making the work—in order to create.'...Which is to say: While most serious writers and artists don't make their best creations working with other people standing over them—or next to them, paint-brush in hand—they are almost always telling a story to, or making beauty for, someone specific."