“I approach collaboration with the same concepts seen in my work's physicality: a mutual reliance of independent makers. I employ exploration paired with traditional craft practice to create new forms in collaboration with a community of makers. Working through creative partnerships has allowed me to re-envision what is considered personal practice and augmented my idea of conceptual growth. Collaboration can take on many forms: maker to material, maker to concept, or maker to maker.” - Ellen Kleckner

Rocker Collaboration with John Schwartzkopf

Ellen began working collaboratively with John in 2020. The collaboration started through natural creative conversations with each other. Ellen moved her studio to the Cherry Building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 2016, where John has had his wood shop since the 1990s. John is an accomplished artist who has exhibited nationally. He approaches his studio practice as a woodworker that builds sculptural forms, working from intuition and available materials.

The Rocker Collaboration developed from Ellen’s ceramic rocking bowls series and John’s investigation of curved laminated wooden forms. The rockers start with Ellen creating the ceramic bowls with spaces in each bowl to attach the wooden legs. After the bowls are bisque fired, they are taken into John’s wood shop and mock-up by adding legs to each bowl. With the legs added, each rocker's rails are created by considering the form of each new bowl. John and Ellen work in continual dialogue while creating each rocker.

The Rocker Collaboration lends to the experience John has in fine woodworking paired with Ellen’s design and ceramic background, along with a mutual respect for each other that allows creative exploration.

- Images of the Rockers Collaboration by Dana Danley-Fortier

- Support for the Rockers Collaboration Project came from the Iowa Arts Council

Additional Collaborators

Riley McManus

Riley is an visual artist based in Wisconsin. He has a background in ceramics and small metals. As highly skilled craftsman, Riley utilizes the pottery wheel as a tool for figurative ceramic sculptures.

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Ellen worked with Riley between 2020-2022, they worked together on large ceramic vessels and bowls that were the foundation larger mixed media sculptures including rocking bowls.

Linda Tien

Linda is a Vietnamese-American visual artist. Her has a background in metalsmithing & jewelry design but she has always worked across media and formats including sculpture, performance, installation and video.

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Ellen has worked with Linda as her primary collaborative partner since 2016. Their work together primarily linked conceptually through their project ‘Implement Archive’.

Mike Sneller

Mike is an visual artist based in Eastern Iowa. He went to the University of Iowa and were he studied metalworking and sculpture. His large scale public sculptures are installed across the Midwest. Mike also stilled fabricator.

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Ellen and Mike worked together in 2021 to create both large scale and small scale sculptures that joined wood with ceramics and metal through traditional dovetail and butterfly joints.