Key Characteristic #4: Collaboration

The Dillons have a very interesting view on collaboration.

"For us to be able to collaborate is somewhat of an amazing thing," Leo Dillon said in an interview with Locus Online.

They use the concept of the "Third Artist" -- a person who is neither Diane, nor Leo, but a separate entity. The Dillons explain more of this fascinating concept below, also excerpted from the Locus interview. This quote is from Diane.

At the point we hit the 'Third Artist' concept, it helped us a lot, because we could look at ourselves as one artist rather than two individuals, and that third artist was doing something neither one of us would do. That lifted the work away from reflecting either one's personal viewpoint. We let it flow the way it flows when an artist is working by themselves and a color goes down that they didn't quite expect and that affects the next colors they use, and it seems to have a life of its own.

The same as writers who talk about how these characters take over their work. In a sense that happens in the creative process with us, too. We're able to accept that flow. If a piece takes on a certain look when I'm doing it, and I hand it to Leo, it flows into something else, and he goes right along with it. Then when it comes back to me I pick it up from that point and carry it on.

This fascinating view of the flow and the otherness that art can sometimes take on is often pervasive in a single person's art, but to be able to put aside ego and make compromises when doing one piece of art between two people is rare.

"Collaborative art is, by nature, a series of compromises," website BPIB wrote. "Somehow the Dillons have managed to compromise themselves into an on-going series of masterworks."

The couple originally met at Parsons in 1953, and were rivals! Art brought them together, and they were married in 1957. They have spent almost 60 years collaborating together, illustrating more than 50 books together and winning a whole host of awards, from the Caldecott to the Hugo to the Coretta Scott King award.

Listen to an NPR piece on the Dillons' fascinating life here.