A 50 week project with Bibiana Huang Matheis
Two artists work in their separate studios (miles apart) during the same hour each week with the intention of tuning into the same creative channel. They don't speak or plan beforehand, but at the end of each session, they compare notes on their inspiration, state of mind and work produced. This is a sampling of their images often showing the relationships in their work, experiences and thoughts. For journal entries, accompanying poems and more images please see the dedicated blog. Bibi and Mimi Friday Adventures
Bibi Mimi Monday Memo
Monday Memos is an ongoing collaborative series by Bibiana Huang Matheis and Mimi Czajka Graminski. (And is a new incarnation of their earlier collaboration.)
“Each Monday, we commit to working simultaneously in our separate studios for one focused hour, intentionally tuning in to the same creative channel. Without prior discussion or planning, we allow ourselves to receive and follow the intuitive guidance that arises during this time, creating what we call our weekly "Memo."
This process—part ritual, part artistic dialogue—continues to reveal surprising synchronicities and thematic echoes in our individual works. Though physically apart, we are consistently struck by the deep connections that emerge through this shared act of silent collaboration.”
This can be viewed at
@bibimimimondaymemo
The project is featured in Conversations with Artists
Poetry and Art
Poet Sarah Stern and I collaborate: I use pieces from my Sewn Drawing Series, sometimes creating new work in response to hers, other times matching existing work to her poems. Sarah has mainly used work from her book “But Today is Different”.
In 2024 we exhibited at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, Art Spaces @ Krasdale Corporate Gallery, White Plains, NY, Starr Library, Rhinebeck, NY and Cocoon Theater, Red Hook, NY.
How were these matches made? In short, they came about by what both of us found to be a magical process, almost as though the pieces and poems were already talking to each other before they were actually conceived. The poems are taken mainly from Sarah Stern’s books But Today Is Different (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014) https://wipfandstock.com/but-today-is-different.htmland We Have Been Lucky In The Midst of Misfortune ( Kelsay Books, Aldrich Press, 2019)https://kelsaybooks.com/products/we-have-been-lucky-in-the-midst-of-misfortune . In a few, the works are a direct response to the poems. But in all the other groupings, the poems and works were conceived separately, and through phone conversations and emails, the matching process took place.
In speaking about how we arrived at our pairings, we started in a very literal sense—the colors and shapes and how there was an almost magnetic pull between the art forms. But then inevitably the conversation would go beyond that connection, to the very experiences that shaped the pieces and poems—the natural world, on being a woman in mid-life, family, on losing parents, on jobs, bonfires, and so much more. To us, these matchings feel personal and political, and the process by which they came together, deeply mysterious and humbling.