cutting and pasting

Okay, so my friend B, who is pretty much the only friend I've kept in touch with continually since high school (that's how rad she is) sent me an email which included the following little bit : Also I have thought of you because I love your collage work. You know I am always looking to use my creativity [...] and I think I would like to try to do some collage. Do you have any tips?

When I was writing her back the message got longer and longer. I didn't realize how strong I felt about collage... or maybe what I mean is, how articulately I felt about it. So I'm gonna blog the part of my response to her that focuses on collage.

 Thanks for liking the collage! You know, it started when I had first gotten out of the hospital --for the first time. You probably knew this already but I pretty much spent from 1995 through 1998 going off and on into inpatient / outpatient programs because I was so unstable from PTSD. I learned (no that's not the right word) --discovered --collage in an art therapy class that focused on mindfulness. Mindfulness of course being the idea of living in the exact moment, the very SECOND that you exist in -consciously --and not ruminating on the past or feeling anxiety about the future. 

There was something quite visceral about cutting (or tearing) the paper, feeling the glue on my fingers, layering paper on top of paper on top of paper.... 

For quite some years I used to live in houses with many people. Once I attached a huge piece of cardboard to our kitchen door, which we never closed. I started a collage and left a pile of magazines but also pre-cut images, and some glue, on the table near the door. I invited my housemates to, whenever they passed by, add an image to the collage. That way, when it was time to move, I would have this ENORMOUS artifact of our time together. 

Imagine my surprise when they were like, "Okaaay Jill, that's cool... maybe later." I couldn't believe not everyone wanted to glue stuff with the same rapacity I did. Eventually I did get my artifact, though I had to contribute more than I wanted --not that I minded doing the work --it was more that I wanted the others' input. 

However, we'd hosted a German exchange student for awhile and when she was ready to leave she did a bit of work on it, including just writing down some phrases in the margins to express how she was feeling. She asked me if she should write them in English or German. I told her to write them in German because then later I could find a translator and it would be like uncovering a wonderful puzzle. 

When I moved to Ohio I lived in a series of small apartments where it was not convenient to do the large-scale collages I had previously liked. That's when I switched over to doing 90% of my work digitally. As much as digital collage frees me from things like large work spaces and messy glue & paint, it also lacks the visceral nature which was so pleasing to me when I first got into collage. 

There are a lot of books on collage / mixed-media art / making altered books that you can buy and they tell you about different advanced techniques like stamping and transfers and wax resists.... but to me the best thing about collage is that you can make beauty from accidents. 

I can't draw very well. I certainly can't draw life-like things from purely my imagination, which is a skill that I still equate with magic. I love to paint as well, but I can't paint, say, a convincingly realistic landscape or a scene with people in it or stuff like that. I don't know if it has to do with my visual impairment, which is significant, the fact that I haven't practiced enough, or the fact that I'm just not that talented in these areas. 

Doing collage / mixed media, for me anyway, basically says "fuck perfection." It lives somewhere between 2D and 3D art because of all the delicious layers. If you mess up, that can just be a "seed" to start a new layer which is just another opportunity for magic. There are lots of unforeseen rips, snags, wrinkles, and stains. There's nothing that has to be symmetrical or in a visual perspective that imitates life. It is about BEING FREE and living in the moment. It is messy and sensual. 

Writing all this stuff down for you makes me think I should get back to "my roots" so to speak... which means, just slap it the fuck on there. 1) Glue paper to a sturdy surface. 2) Glue some more paper to that. 3) Maybe add paint or ink. 4) Glue some more. With my hands, not the computer. 

I'm a control freak. All my therapists say that I'm really good at confronting challenges and working on myself. The hardest part of the serenity prayer for me is "accept the things I cannot change." It would probably benefit me to re-engage myself in an activity where control is not required, where lack of control is a good thing. Mindfulness.

So I guess what I'm saying in a long LONG round about way is that you don't have to learn. Just start. If you want you can pick a theme (like everything will be warm tones!) and just start gluing stuff to other stuff.