Collages

Collaging has for a long time provided moments of focused calm, escape, sharing, expressing, self exploration, and joy.  I still have one made in Kindergarten or thereabouts.  Crayon, fabric, pipe cleaners, cotton ball, and paper were used to create a vision of my mom carrying a basket of flowers, the sun shining in a craft-colored sky.  After re-discovering this artifact I recalled – or imagined – making it while sitting on the bumpy wooden floor of a Lutheran schoolhouse in River Grove, Illinois.

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Thirty years later I used collage to record, explore and illustrate my dreams, experiences and poems, filling several hundred pages of cardstock journals.  Dismantled books, magazines, newspapers, photos and handmade paper were the primary means of communicating an ephemeral story, not unlike the sculpture of a Gothic cathedral. A natural pause from this steady, nearly compulsive, devotional work left me with piles of cut-up images.  Why not one more burst of collaging? I made a book called Tailings, Newly Esteemed, with the only directives being to use what I had on hand, have fun, and question nothing.

 

It has been said that artists feel things well before they happen – with the composer Gustav Mahler being a prime example.  A few months prior to the onset of the current pandemic the urge to collage made itself known and I began to work with sheets of watercolor paper and an enormous stash of imagery.  This extended into the shelter-in-place order and the solace served an important role in keeping me centered.

 

I was once told I could make my collages using a computer program. This is true on a practical level, but the comment reflected the precision of my work, which boils down to using an Xacto knife, stainless steel straightedge, cutting board, glue stick, and smoother, with old books or stone slabs used to keep the paper flat while the adhesive matures and the elements marry. The movement and concentration involved have a timeless quality, as if they are the same as that when collaging or drawing during childhood and into my adult work life.