Carol Hall & Mike Kehs (USA) Ash coloured and decorated hollow form 18x11cm. SignedA lucky girl (Carol) gets to collaborate with Michael Kehs, but when he asks you to work with him on an unfinished Ray Key piece, well, that's a whole new level of happy!Michael met Ray only once, many years ago, at a club function. He remembers Ray's attention to detail and his “keep it simple and beautiful” approach to design. Retaining the original form was paramount to our thought process for this collaboration.We met to brainstorm and immerse ourselves with images of Ray's creations - there is no better way to communicate with an artist than through his body of work. Our piece had Ray's distinctive vase shape, using an open grained piece of ash. We had such a great time figuring out how to honour Key's "less is more" aesthetic with our "more is almost enough" ideas.Michael finished turning the inside of the piece and sandblasted it to open the grain. Then he made a wonderful cap that emulates Ray's signature forms. This new top was a great surface for Michael to use his latest texturing techniques, adding his distinctive artistic sizzle. Then Carol got to cover the piece with layers of black liming to make all the grain and rough texture pop. She followed by intense coloring on the top, that drains to paleness into the body form. A second layer of black wax rubbed in the crevices took piece from a bright shiny object into an ancient heirloom treasure. The finished piece is a fusion of three very different hands, complementing and provoking each other.Michael and Carol were sparked with a flurry of great ideas while working on this special project and are sure that they will be inspired by the challenges of this piece in their own future work.The Ray Key Collaboration Auction