Creative communities, a selfish endeavor?! Certainly, shared individual aims are often achieved more easily through collaboration. These points go [somewhat] uncontested. Only a select few are capable of agape collaboration, the rest cling to like minds in order to delegate tasks appropriately. It is never without headaches, yet the rewards are unequivocal.

Our panelists came to us from varied creative backgrounds. Olive Prince, a dancer/choreographer working in a shared-space dance studio gets invaluable feedback and a pool of performers. Sara Selepouchin facilitates Etsy Teams, helping members band together geographically, aesthetically, philosophically. John Freeborn found a creative outlet and a marriage of convenience in the formation of Space 1026; the economic burden of a printmaking studio (and a miniramp) was (and still is, ten years and dozens of members later) displaced over a number of individuals.

The blade of our discussion channeled (pardon the lesson in group dynamics) Tuckerman's four stages of group problem solving (eventually a fifth stage was added, an important stage indeed). Forming: people share a common problem or goal. Storming: they have varying ideas about the solution of said problem and politeness subsides as they become comfortable. Norming: developing work-arounds to problems, delegating tasks to appropriate members. Performing: members form Voltron and efficiently work toward their established goal. The fifth stage was added to help understand what happens after the goal is achieved. Adjourning/Mourning: founding members feel a sense of loss as the group dissolves or transcends its original purpose. To that end: new members with new perspectives joined Space 1026, founding members went on to do other projects, and came back, then went on to do other projects, then came back. Etsy teams became more and more autonomous, they have the support of the parent, but serve their own ends more and more.

There comes a time when the avant garde becomes the old guard. Then the old guard form new groups. It's a cycle, but like child-rearing (Geoff's analogy), "one must forget the pain of having the first child before having a second."