Collage is the opposite of college, as here you cut it all up and rearrange it however the hell you want. In 2020, I dove into making collages. For art’s sake I had saved up much interesting imagery over the years, while mostly not having the time or inclination to make hay of them and array. Now I was finally razoring and tearing out images and brushing on matte medium as a glue, taking tips from YouTube.
What had changed surely was both free time and the world gone mad. If the world is mad and we are women then we are madwomen, Q. E. D. And what do madwomen do? Time in places where one makes collages. Do I do it for the same reason? Yes, it soothes; feels like a puzzle when images rhyme like clues.
Mostly I collage for beauty. Much beauty rubs the wrong way in a world on fire, but torn beauty is often welcomed. For me, collage makes available a kind of bruised, used beauty. You know, like you and me. Even the young have often already been ripped away from something.
I paint and draw a lot of circles here and elsewhere. Collage is circular as it reuses pieces and makes a new sense of them. Our lives circle around and around our individual themes and our eyes find these themes in the field of noise, and pain, and tattered grace.
I want to sustain awareness of the beauty of the days, but its hard. Often despite hours of light I feel the minutes with a grind. You have likely stood at a counter and noticed yourself unable to sustain awareness of the beauty of the days rotating with us in their coffee cup, stirred, through weeks of feeling, failing, and that version of falling that is sometimes flying. Collages are a freedom in the making but also so much in the looking. Contrasting again with college (a stand in here for holding knowledge), collage can be a radical letting go.
I like when a collage has a message but these aren’t saying anything except here’s what happened when I pushed paper around looking for something I like. So you are free to look and like or not and not wonder if you’re missing something.
Still too, perhaps I’m audibly wrong. Do the things you see seem more forlorn than playful? Do you catch more toys than war? Bones than roar? Sting than bee? What’s that you’re hearing here? It’s not you, it’s me. It’s the vision of my inner stagehand.
When was the last time you cut a few things up and rearranged them? Maybe I’m talking to your subconscious here. The message calls for mess and innovation.
That’s all for this Sunday edition of Think Bank by Jennifer Michael Hecht. I hope you are well and declare you doing well and you can either embrace the spring or hide from it! Ha, I give you permission. Stay alive and I shall return to encourage you again.
love,
Jennifer
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