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Lorri Millan and I met in 1986, when she was 20 and I was 23. We were working together as theatre technicians, and haven't stopped work of other sorts since. Over the past decade, we have created a couple dozen performance pieces, handfuls of videos, two films, and sundry print projects. We have also grown up together, come out, created our own identities, fallen in and out of love, and continued to be family. We have gotten to the point where our voices sound the same on the phone and we can finish each other's sentences.

Either we are collaborators, or part of a strange cult of two.

Our commitment to each other isn't based on specific projects; it is about process, and seeing all the directions in which each idea can lead us. It is also about creating a creative life. Daily we engage in conversation that forms the basis of the work. It can take years for a project to evolve this way, and this can be frustrating. We're very different people, especially in our sense of time. We bug each other in millions of ways that are unique to people who have spent years of their lives together, but somehow, we work through it. The depth of commitment we have for each other often sends our respective girlfriends running in the opposite direction. Our lives aren't simple, nor easy. We're always hustling, usually tired, often touring, and we don't make much money.

But.

We have learned how to create - to make something from nothing together - and through this have gained a lot, for collaboration is nothing more (or less) than respect, honesty, hastening, loyalty, common goals and argument. Collaboration is incredibly intimate. Collaboration is risky, especially in performance, as it is such a vulnerable formstanding behind one's own ideas, with one's own flesh. It involves a sharing of success as well as of failure, a letting go of some ego, and an understanding that you are (or rather, I am) not seen as less because we did it together. This is particularly an issue in the visual arts world, where the model of creation has always been the lone artist-a unique individual with a unique vision. We have had to fight to be recognized as equal contributors to the work, especially since usually I am the performer, and Lorri the invisible outside eye.

I take our collaboration, and the sharing of artmaking in general, very seriously. Lorri and I have worked with other people on different projects, with results ranging from great to disastrous. Collaboration is something to be approached with caution, because it is a powerful thing. The creative process is so personal that collaboration can be hurtful and damaging. It takes time to develop a common language and trust. I know I have been lucky to find someone with whom to work and live my life. There have been times when being an artist has seemed so difficult, times when I have truly despaired, and through those times it has been Lorri who kept me creating and performing. Despite the risks collaboration involves-the vulnerability and aggravation-it has been worth it. It is less lonely with two, and much more fun.