introducing stardotblog’s collaborator

(the following is from Robin James, a new writing collaborator to the blog; she'll be helping with some of the longer form posts in the future.  these posts, while written from my perspective, are an ambiguous amalgamation of our conversations, my edits, images, and my own writing.  --christian)

christian is an artist - he’s really good at making things.  My medium is writing--I’m a philosophy professor who specializes in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. So, because my medium is writing and christian’s isn’t, he asked me to help collaborate on some of the blog posts.

I’ve decided to write from christian’s first-person perspective. The “I” in subsequent posts is him, his perspective. Oftentimes it’s more or less direct transcription of a conversation we’ve just had (more on those conversations below). I, Robin, chose to ghostwrite from christian’s first-person perspective because I wanted to preserve the directness and intimacy of a blog format; christian will be the one interacting with readers in comments and the like. It’s his blog, his ideas, his work. I am just structuring it in a clear, easy-to-read way. christian is giving me the content, and I Robin am taking that content and molding it into an appropriately written form.  I am keeping my own ideas, thoughts, opinions, etc., out of these posts to the extent that I am consciously able to do so.  If anything, I’m hoping my lack of expertise in making will force christian to explain himself more clearly and carefully so that I, Robin, can understand what he’s doing well enough to write about it.

Each blog post is the result of a meeting christian and I have to plan a post. He comes with a specific idea, problem, or project, and I listen to him explain what is on his mind, what he’s doing in his studio, etc. I take notes, and transform those notes into a post. At the end of the meeting, I’ll tell christian what I plan on doing in the post--how I’ll structure it, how I’ll frame the post, etc. - and he’ll approve and/or make suggestions so that I convey what he wants to say, not what I think he wants to say.  I then draft the post, and share it with him. He goes over it, makes some edits and changes he wants, and adds in pictures.

I’m excited to be a participant in this blog. While you won’t hear much here from me, Robin, as me, if you are interested in my own work, please check out its-her-factory.blogspot.com.