Fitting the Pieces Together

About a year ago I came across a YouTube video of a man making a collage.  He had an extremely calming voice, and the way he assembled his collages was like watching a rhythmic and smooth dance of hands.  I was totally fascinated with him.  He provided an oasis of calm at a time in my life when I was desperate for that (Futon’s YouTube channel is artwhisperer88).   

Watching his videos led me to watch many other videos on the same subject.  I became quite the collage voyeur.  I wondered if I could make one.  It certainly looked relaxing and enjoyable.  It wasn’t a possibility for me in that moment, as caring for my husband was intense and permitted no free time.  But watching others create brought me a sense of peace and calm.    

When my life shifted and I had time to take on hobbies again, collage was at the front of my thoughts.  I had a box of art supplies that moved with us when we moved to where I live now.  Or at least I thought I did.  The first challenge of collage was to find that box.  Indeed, I found it, and it was quite the gift, with some nice things in it from back in the day when I was working and had a resounding budget for fun things. 

I stumbled through my first attempts.  I didn’t create anything all that attractive, but I began the learning curve.  It didn’t matter to me that I wasn’t making great art.  It was fun and relaxing.  The process was meditative.  There was something healing about the bringing together of small bits to create something larger – something that felt whole.  I have recently watched a collage artist who shared that to her it is not about the result; it is about the process.  I think back now on when I started collaging a bit over six months ago; it was (and still is) about being in the flow of creation.  It is an art that is in the mind - envisioning what the scraps will lead to - and also very tactile in the manipulation of the papers.  My life lesson at the time I began collaging was that I didn’t need to know where life was taking me.  It was okay that I was in flux.  What mattered was the moment, the day, and the headspace I was in at any given time.  For the first time in my life, I let go of future-planning.  I still haven’t picked that back up (I don’t know if that will ever seem important to me again).  I was learning to be content.  To create a life out of small pieces of beautiful things. 

As I worked on collages, I would think about the small bits of my what-then-felt-shattered life.  The focus and freedom of creating collages slowed my brain down to think of what pieces of my life I wanted to bring together to create a new whole.  I will always remember that working with my paper scraps is what helped me put my life back together.  Or at least to begin that process.  I would think of all the good things and assign color and texture to them from my scraps of paper, applying them to my collage.  There were times I decided a scrap of paper represented something in my life that I did not want in my life’s art.   It became therapeutic to write the name of what needed to be let go on the back of a scrap of paper.  I saved those scraps until I felt ready to “bury” them, then glued them all down on a substrate and created a colorful and energetic collage overtop of them.  No one will ever know where those hidden scraps are but me.  Powerful stuff. 

The next part of the journey was learning to create my own scrap papers by printing them on a Gelli plate.  Therein lies my current addiction.  I am a Gelli-printing fool.  And, oh the pleasure I take from a collage that I cut out and assemble from papers I print.  It is nothing for me to spend a couple of hours (it was three yesterday) creating papers.  What fun!  Making prints is the collage-before-the-collage.  Deciding what colors, textures, and marks to bring together on the Gelli plate puts the spark of art into the papers that will end up collaged.  Printing feels like a gestation period, with the collage the birth of the possibility represented in the prints. 

And added to the fun is the occasional little bit of life lesson represented by a snippet of paper.