"Just listening and going back and forth and exchanging ideas with people.
It's a beautiful thing." -Lakeith Stanfield
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Ten years ago, almost to the very day, my friend Heidi and I began a game of creative tennis, and our rally continues to this day. Back and forth we have served a series of artistic renderings, each one based on the one that came before, in a mutually satisfying game of one-upmanship that reveals exactly what makes our friendship tick.
Most of these exchanges happened back on that fateful evening in 2011, but just last month, Heidi resurrected the game with a playful Valentine, and I returned her volley yesterday, which just happened to be her birthday.
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In a nutshell, we started with a (horribly blurry) photo of a table set for Heidi's birthday lunch, and manipulated it over and over again, creating a series of images that fit back into each other like a set of Russian nesting dolls.
See all the stages and read more about how the project unfolded here.
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So I took the most recent evolution - Heidi's Valentine hearts that were based on earlier versions of the images we created...
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...and overlaid it with another, even earlier version of our series of photos...
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...creating this, a new iteration of our collaboration.
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From there, my project fell quickly into place. I printed thirteen copies of the new image on cardstock, strung them up on some black ribbon, and wrote out the simple yet singular message:
H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y
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Once the mystery package was delivered to Heidi's doorstep bright and early on the morning of her big day, I breathed a sigh, partly of relief but mostly of immense satisfaction, knowing that I'd done my part to keep the rhythm of our game alive.
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And now, the ball is back in Heidi's court. Can't wait to see her next move.
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Here are all the details of how our project has evolved.
Start at the top of this list for a chronological report:
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