Much of creative discovery is propelled by laziness — or at least in my case, it is. It’s not that I mind performing lots of discrete steps or putting in the time (sometimes an obscene amount of time, I might add), it’s that I don’t always love some of the individual steps — for instance, gluing shit down.
Enter the scene: 8 1/2 x 11” sticky paper designed to be fed into an inkjet printer. Oh, am I psyched about this!
Step one: rip and cut collage elements. Place on blank page. No glue. Photograph.
This is as ephemeral as you can get, by the way, because by the end of this process, this arrangement will no longer exist. Digital record only. Do I mind the curling edges and the shadows produced by them? Sometimes. Sometimes not.
Step two: run photo of unglued collage through a bunch of filters using dianaphoto app.
My favorites below combined the collage and a photo I took of very weathered wood — perhaps a window opening to a slave cabin? I don’t remember. Using the “roll the dice” function for shuffling images in dianaphoto means I don’t always recognize what comes up and, having 13,000+ pictures on my phone, I don’t necessarily want to track down the source (see laziness, above).
Step three: select one photo of a layered collage and print onto sticky paper. Trim and stick to sketchbook page.
Step four: pillage elements from original collage (remember, nothing was glued down) and adhere them to the print/layered version.
I have trouble getting the interface between my phone and printer to do what I want it to, so I often just go with what comes out. In this case the slight change in scale served the design.
PS Sometimes I use the app “whitagram” to add a white border around an image so that when I print it, the image is smaller. In this case, I didn’t.
PPS The photo of the weathered wood was taken with the app “Hipstamatic” which applied the off-white faux paper photo border and also muted some of the color.
Maybe I’ll try to find the original after all. But first, it’s shrimp scampi for lunch (inspired by Melissa Clark’s cooking video on NYTimes cooking app) and then I’ve got to bake Za’atar Parmesan Pinwheels (same app) for a 75th bday party tonight!
The two female faces showed up in an earlier collage, some filtered versions below.
And, as is so often the case these days, 
As I begin to explore yellow* — my cutting and piecing paper instincts want to be translated to cloth. Can I even remotely achieve the immediacy of paper collage with stitch and fabric? What a wonderful edge to open up the power of the will.
I went looking for a quote about how areas in our life that are the messiest are often the areas where the most progress is being made. Couldn’t find it. Here’s what I found instead. Enjoy!
“We are large enough to encompass our losses. We are brave enough to dream again, risk again, love again. We just need the assurance that we really can do so, and this assurance will come to us in a thousand forms, large and very small, if we ask for it. But ask we must.”
All SoulCollage by me. Some fairly old.
In the room where I write, various robe ideas are being auditioned. The beige linen is too small, I’ve discovered, so even if it is to be a vest, cloth has to be added to the sides. Bah. Makes the lavender linen more appealing after all. Maybe I can in fact find colors to go with it?
Food procurement has been a little nuts this week mostly because of my pea brain. I ended up with three orders in five days. Not what I intended.
Much discussion in writing class today and elsewhere about how our habits have changed because of the coronavirus. What’s changed for the better? What of our old life maybe needs to be surrendered? How are we finding the increased quiet, the slower pace (if so lucky to be afforded that?) Read Kristin’s comment from yesterday. More on this from me later.