Published Aug. 5, 2005, in the Waukesha Freeman

Story by Matthew Webber

WAUKESHA - Art not only imitates life, sometimes it imitates other art. For part of this weekend's Art Crawl, 10 writers partnered with 10 artists in a "circular" experiment to create new art.

As Kathie Giorgio, the organizer of "Art From Art and Back Again" explained the process, each writer composed a poem or short story inspired by an artist's painting, sculpture or photograph, while each artist created a painting, sculpture or photograph inspired by a writer's poem or short story.

All works will be on display in the All Writers' Workplace and Workshop on Saturday, and the writers and artists will discuss their work in the evening.

"The purpose is to show people how creativity is a circle," said Giorgio, the workshop's founder. "Writers look at paintings and they start writing poetry or stories, and artists read poetry or stories and they create paintings. It's just a way of showing the public how art works hand in hand with each other and how we inspire each other to do things."

The event itself was inspired by a painting, as Giorgio got the idea while driving past Jill Verbick's "Lily Lady" in a gallery window. Wanting to tell that lady's story, Giorgio chose Verbick as her partner and gave her a short story to interpret visually.

Giorgio selected other writers and artists during a four- to five-month planning process in an attempt to "get writers and artists together" and introduce her workshop to the art community, she said.

As one work led to another, Giorgio - and she hopes all participants - discovered a new way to approach the creative process. Starting with a certain image in mind but not knowing what she would say about it, Giorgio was forced to "stretch out a little bit."

"I had no idea what the story was going to be about when I started it, other than I wanted to end it with my character in the position that this person in the painting is in, sitting on the couch with her legs drawn up," she said.

"It was neat to see the thoughts go toward that. Instead of just writing randomly, there was a path I went down."

Verbick was so inspired by Giorgio's short story "Fat Girl Outside," she created two paintings: one a nude portrait of the main character that took her 40 hours, and the other an abstract work that took her 30 minutes.

"The whole point of the project is so much fun to take two different creative energies and combine them and interact," Verbick said. "I learned a lot from it, I really did. I thought it was a wonderful thing to take part in."

Verbick admits she is curious - and slightly nervous - to read what Giorgio wrote, but she has "total confidence" the story will be great.

Although she had never participated in an event like Art From Art before, Verbick didn't find the circular collaboration too different from her usual methods and goals.

"Once (a painting) is finished, I want it to go out into the world and affect people," she said. "When I see somebody look at my work, and they smile or they frown and they look at it and they start telling me how it makes them feel, then I know as a painter I've done my job.

"So for someone to actually write a story, I think, I'm just anxious to see what she has to say."