BY Jaine Treadwell and Scottie Brown

A crazy quilt, a thread that runs so true and written words that read like a song came together in such “A Joyous Exchange” that the hearts and souls of the master composers were moved to nearly to tears.

“The Art of Collaboration: A Joyous Exchange” art exhibit is the collaborative work of Troy University professor of design, Jerry R. Johnson; choral conductor Diane Orlofsky and associate professor of art Pam Allen.

The exchange was rooted in a meeting over coffee between Johnson and Orlofsky. Her desire was for him to illustrate her book of “Meditations.” But, in reading the book, Johnson was so moved that his commitment was not to just illustrate the book for Orlofsky but to illuminate the words she had penned in such a way that both the artwork and the words would take on a spiritual quality and that the words would be illuminated through the joyous exchange from artist to artist.

“It’s become less about the original focus of the meditations and it’s become more about the exchange of artists,” Orlofsky said. “Working with the artists that you respect and the relationships of trust, co-creating something that didn’t exits before. It went from this place, and now it’s here. It embodies a joyous exchange. There has been nothing not fun about this whole project.”

“The Art of Collaboration: A Joyous Exchange” opened at the Johnson Center for the Arts on June 17. An ArtTalk by the artists followed a reception in their honor Thursday night at the art center.

“I think people responded really well and asked terrific questions, and that’s the best you can hope for with art,” Johnson said. “That people will think and I saw a few teary eyes. So, I think it was successful. I loved the turnout. The fact that we had a lot of guests,

I’m 100 percent excited about it.”

Collaborating with another artist is an entire experience within itself, as both Orlofsky and Johnson agreed. It’s an experience like no other to allow someone else to take their personal thoughts and interpret them for themselves.

“It’s cool. It’s like nothing I could have predicted,” Orlofsky said. “The whole is better than the sum of its parts. When you read this and then see this…you could look at these and revisit them many times and bring your own meaning, experience and layers to it.”

Johnson agreed, saying that they worked well together for the project.

“She let me do whatever style I wanted and I love that old renaissance baroque, very strong light,” Johnson said. “But I like that even in photography. I like the playfulness of using twine or any arbitrary item. If I wanted to throw a fork there, I could. It was just any element that I thought was interesting or had a meaning to me. It wasn’t going to spoil it for her as long as it had a relevance or purpose to it.”

For Allen, painting has always been a solitary activity and she never really thought about the parallels her work might have with others until she was asked to join the “Joyous Exchange” with Johnson and Orlofsky.

“Reflecting, I cannot ignore the collaboration my most recent work addresses that began 35 years ago when Grandma Odom and I started building squares to make a crazy quilt,” Allen said. “My goal for the project was to keep Grandma active. She sewed by hand the bits and pieces of fabrics from three generations of family clothes. My contribution was to do the embroidered stitching on top.”

Allen said, when she and her grandmother began their adventure, she only knew how to sew a chain stitch.

“Today, I know how to do 27 different stitches,” she said. “Grandma Odom passed in 1988 and my mother, Margaret Odom Standridge, took up the task of finishing the squares. My mother is now in her 80s. When I finally put the pieces together to make the crazy quilt, there were a number of squares left over. Consequently the Quilt Series was born.”

When asked, Allen said she usually says her work is about her life, which is a little narcissistic.

“But in truth, it’s about family and the deeply rooted values passed from generations,” she said.

Johnson’s image of Allen’s crazy quilt is illuminated in his digital artwork and the essence of the stitchery is captured in Orlofsky’s “Meditations.”

“A quilt begins with a square. Each square, a thing of beauty. Each square is stitched with love and intention and meaning. Some squares tell their own story; others merely allude to the hands and the history of the seamstress.”

Johnson expressed that this may not be a one-time affair.

“We certainly want to have this exhibit at two or three other venues within driving distance,” Johnson said. “No further than, say Atlanta. And there’s probably a lot of galleries in that kind of radius that we could do a show. In the meantime, we would like to keep producing and create the book. I’ll design the book and make it a beautiful piece of art in itself, but also write the content. Not just the meditations and the images, but I’d love to have a chapter in the book about copiation.”

Orlofsky is already cooking up some new ideas for the future.

“We’ll have to add to it and grow it,” Orlofsky said. “And I think Jerry may want to start painting some things and I will paint new things, so there is a new piece of the journey yet to be experienced. I have the idea for the next two pieces. It never ends.”

Together, Allen, Johnson and Orlofsky create “A Joyous Exchange.”