Letting things assemble themselves
Collage for me has been an underlying hobby, practice, play zone, slow-down moment, and a way to remember how to create when I feel like I haven’t been as creative in a while. It’s like stretching to re-connect with your body. The practice of cutting and assembling paper is more than just assembling paper of course. It’s just a practice in trusting your decision making really.
It reconnects me to what making anything actually is.
I don’t really “design” a collage. I don’t start with a concept, well sometimes something rough. But most of the time I simply start by ripping out pages that speak to me in some hidden language. Then I select the shapes or forms or objects, again solely by letting my mind and body do its thing. Then I start looking at the pieces. I move them around. I try things. I follow what feels right. All I am doing is following the feeling. And that for me is the muscle memory I keep building.
And then, at some point, once you’re in the trust of movment and letting the pieces and your good feeling guide you, the thing starts making itself. You’ve brought forward the pieces, then by assembling them in different ways, something actually comes to life. I love this so much because it’s just making something from nothing. It’s just pieces of paper when you start, but then at the end it’s a reflection of a conversation with your own trust. I think these little practices are so important. We can get so caught up and distanced from that. It’s important, for me to simply remember what instinct actually feels like and listening to it.
That’s the work. Or rather the play. The floooowwww.
I guess first it’s getting the conditions right. Getting in the craft zone.
Then the arranging.
Then the assembly and trying and moving.
Then simply observing the moment when you recognize that it feels right for you. Not because it makes sense, but because it feels like it does. And especially not because someone else said so. Only you, your feeling, and your hands moving.
Tiny trust in yourself practices are the best. Also, just an easy way to start creating motion. Sometimes the mind makes us hesitate, but the hands and body just keep doing.