Out of exuberance and curiosity while teaching at Penland School of Crafts during the summer of 2011, Steven Pittelkow and I began working together and continued collaborating for the next couple of years as an intentional act of discovery.  By layering marbled patterns (created by Steve floating and manipulating pigments on top of thickened liquid) over photographs and photograms (made by Alyssa with hand-mixed and hand-applied photographic emulsions), we produced vibrant, psychedelic images with emotional resonance of tension and joy.

We engaged like jazz musicians, each with experienced knowledge of our tools and our processes, leaving space for the other to work.  The evocation and meaning of each resultant image relied completely on how it was made.  While individually, each of our techniques forms specific images, combined they produce a third, inseparable from the parts.