The only math project I ever really enjoyed as a child was an attempt to integrate art into the curriculum. The teacher had us scour newspapers for numbers. We cut them out and reassembled them into a hodge podge sticky mess. Obviously, it stuck with me even though the adult art teacher cringes at the lack of learning objectives. But this was art and I loved the fancy French word: Colláge.
I have always loved words and text. I have appreciated the repurposing of common household items into art materials long before upcycle was a word. Even as a small child I saw the merit in the banal. Bits of things: scraps of paper with interesting text, stamps, and maps, anything with patterns found a way into my collection. I never did anything other than amass that stuff. Still it was transported from home to home.
When I worked with encaustic, the objects of my obsession found homes fused into the compositions of many pieces. But it wasn’t colláge. Colláge was that genre of Matisse, Braque, and Bearden.
In graduate school there was a unit in storytelling. This wonderfully wacky whirlwind of a teacher came in with countless giant leaf bags overstuffed with her lifelong collection of bits and scraps. She dumped everything on the floor in the middle of the classroom and urged us to hunt and gather. I felt like a kid at Christmas. My art cohorts were equally delighted and a frenzy ensued. So many fantastic pieces. We needed to create something from nothing and we could use only these fragments to tell our stories.
During my days of Fabulon, I was fortunate to meet and come to know Hampton R. Olfus, Jr. In my less than humble opinion, he is the new master of colláge. His work, in general, engages the viewer to pause for a deeper introspection. But his colláge work is remarkable. Often guests would exclaim as they realized what they were seeing was really fabric, string, or shredded credit cards.
Just now, colláge as an artform, is really speaking to me. This was supposed to be the year of Italy. Although I am easily amused in isolation, I have always had severe cases of wanderlust. See blog post about Running Away.
Quarantine has also brought the urge to purge. Yet there are these remnants of which I cannot part as the GoodWill bin fills with clothing, dishes, and a few antiques.
They shall make their way into paintings. Many of my paintings have underlying currents of holding on and letting go and the passage of time.
Ironically, in a really good colláge the paint is barely discernible from the paper scrap or embedded bit. Still, it soothes me to think my treasures are a bonus gift to the new owner of a painting.