I’ve been playing with digital art for about 8 months now, and in that time, I’ve fallen in love with the practice + process of collage -- not only as an art form but also as a way of seeing + relating + building.
In my collage art, I take bits from lots of different images + put them together in new ways.
Which is a fractal of something much bigger.
In a way, anything we make is collage, and creating collage art has tuned me in to how I practice this -- and how I might practice it more in other ways.
First, collage requires us to make the most of what we have.
When I make my art, I’m working with the images I can find (a built-in limit + occasional source of frustration).
Sometimes, I have a vision in my head, but I can’t find what I’m looking for, so I have to use something else + try to fit it all together in a different way.
But getting inventive when the raw materials are less than ideal is a useful skill in art + life.
I think of this past year -- how we all did what we could to make life livable + functional in a pandemic -- how we figured out zoom + home offices + virtual school, explored new hobbies, connected in different ways, and more.
Life became a patchwork of different threads. And that definitely didn’t make it all okay. There’s been lots of grief, loss, and chaos.
But lots of creativity + possibility + change too. Because we had no choice but to rearrange the pieces of our lives to create a different collage than the one we expected.
I also think about how a collage often starts with one tiny magical thing.
Sometimes, a complete vision comes to me for an art piece that I want to bring into form. But more often than not, I start with one bit of one image that feels electric + alive -- a person, shape, landscape, object, etc. -- and then explore how I might build a whole story + complete work of art around it.
These fragments + treasures become the magnets that pull in more ideas + move the currents of creativity.
Sometimes, all we need is one bit of magic, one touchstone that feels alive, one special ingredient to get started.
We can build a lot from a single seed of possibility.
And finally, there’s magic in collage around what happens in the layering, touching, and relating.
Because a collage is more than a collection of images that look good together. It becomes something other + something more.
The bringing together of what we don’t always expect but inexplicably works is a wonder.
It opens possibility, challenges expectations, and inspires us to keep exploring + creating.
So if this resonates, I definitely recommend collage as a creative + spiritual practice. What might you collect, bring together, and create?