New Year Collage

What do we see?

Welcome to my wee corner of Substack. I am a seasonal artist living on the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland. I am the custodian of approximately two acres of land that includes a woodland, a meadow and my wee garden. I offer a seasonal book arts project for paid subscribers if you are interested and you can read more about that HERE. Grab a cuppa and lets delve into our relationship with the shifting seasons….

As the year gathers a gentle pace it is a super time to create a collage. I make collages all the time and they are central to my creative voice. I thought I would share what I do and why they have become so important, especially in recent years.

The Cambridge dictionary tells us that a collage is -

(the art of making) a picture in which various materials or objects, for example paper, cloth, or photographs, are stuck onto a larger surface.

It may well be this but, in my experience, it is a whole lot more. It is a process where conventions are abandoned and freedom births. It is a place to host emerging ideas drawing on inspiration buried deep in the subconscious mind. It is a work of art that grows from genuine small beginnings into something that we do not completely understand and there lies its super power.

Collage has probably been a part of most people’s education and childhood. Children collage naturally with the freedom to experiment without reference to external judgement. Over time, that freedom of expression gets challenged and, for many people, eroded. In a world where comparsion is so central I think collage has an even more important place to exist. Collage simply gives us permission to play. Play is, arguably, one of the most important words in the Cambridge dictionary. Adulting persuades us that play is the domain of the child and that is simply wrong on so many levels. If we lose our ability to play we challenge our ability to understand fun. We are in dangerous territory then.

The process of creating collage can be different for everyone and perhaps it should be. I can only talk about my experience but I would encourage everyone to find ways that work for them. I am a seasonal artist so many of my starting points will begin with the season I am inhabiting at the time. January is an excellent time to collage as there is a newness about this month. You might start with a torn out image of a magazine of a snowdrop and start from there. However, I don’t just draw on what is around me in January. I draw on how January makes me feel as a new year gets underway. I have been writing all winter about my incubation strategy and collaging is another element of it. So, my starting reference must also be a sprig of dried lavender from the previous summer as I create a lot of products for my store with dried lavender and know the benefits the scent brings to our minds.

Once you have a starting point you are underway. In my process I go on a ‘gathering hunt’ where I look for papers, paints, crayons, magazine images, stencils, stamps, pressed flowers, stickers etc that I feel speak to my starting point. I work on a large table when I collage and I add glue, gel medium, paintbrushes, water and my apron into the mix and off I go. The secret for me is to work quickly to feed by intutitive brain. I am not interested in a well curated and considered work of art. I am only interested in creative freedom and expression that comes from witnessing the piece in growth. I also move about the surface a lot in order to let areas ‘rest’ for a while. I try and finish a collage in one sitting otherwise it becomes something different. If you are new to collage I would recommend limiting your surface to A5 or even smaller. From small acorns…..

I use white gesso paint as a way of softening the harder edges as the collage develops. I am aiming for the collection of parts to become a whole and I find softening hard edges is fundamental to that process. As my experience has grown I have found that stitching has become part of many of my collages either by hand or by machine. I sometimes like to create small stitched elements to glue or stitch onto the surface.

It is all in the juxtaposition for me. I love how the juxtaposition finds its own way quite naturally the more experience you have and in that ‘experience’ timeline there are lots of moments of joy. When wee bits of the collage seem to ‘speak’ to other bits effortlessly.

There are super powers and then there are ‘SUPER powers’ and this is my favourite thing to share from my experience of the joy of collaging. When a collage is finished I cover it up so I can’t see it for at least a week. You will be amazed at how much the subconscious brain will keep trundling through images of your collage without you, necessarily, being aware of that. When you reveal your collage to yourself, after a period of absence, it instinctively starts sharing some messages with you. You see things you didn’t see when you were locked into the process. Your subconscious mind becomes your best friend as you try to understand what these messages are and the impact they might have on your creative voice. The review and reflection of your collage is best done with a cup of tea, at least in my world. I just look, take mental notes and let new thinking find somewhere comfortable to rest somewhere in creative brain.

So, from the moment you select your piece of inspiration to the last reflective gazes of the collage this journey creates a special place in our creative brains and this is to treasured. Somewhere along the way you found your inner child. Somewhere along the way you got all sticky and paint on your best jumper. Somewhere along the way you became free.

You might wonder what I do with all my collages. Some I just keep in a folder to gaze at when suits. Sometimes (hold onto yourselves) I cut them up to make book covers from my handmade journal business. I know! However, by doing that the magic of the collage reaches beyond me and I love that. Last year I bought an art scanner which now allows me to scan in the original collage and I can make prints and cards from them. I also use these electronic copies as covers for my self published seasonal journals. Substack is a writing community so why not start your collage journey with a single word and see where that takes you. Wherever it takes you you might stumble across me collaging away and dipping my paintbrush in my tea by mistake for the third time that day. Enjoy.