Heed the Creative Nudge (or, I ♥ Collage)

I am obsessed and I make no apologies.

Collage. I am all in.

I don’t know how long it will last, but for now? All. in.

.:.

The first nudge to re-explore collage came about a year ago. In March 2018 I pulled out several collages in progress that had been sitting in various states of completion for years and laid them all out on my art table. I ran my hands over the loose pieces of paper, straightened them where they were crooked and thought back to the narratives and stories that went into the creation of each piece. Then I put them away.

The nudge reappeared throughout the year, but it was several months before I finally decided to follow it – just for fun. It was gentle at first: seeking books and online courses, taking note of collage styles I liked, going through my paper stash, reading, admiring, sorting…

Collage preliminaries: playing with colours on my art table just to see how they would look next to each other.

Then a few weeks ago, nearly one year to the day on which got the first nudge, I heard a voice that said “Enough reading and sorting, time to go to the art table!”. So I did.

I’ve been spending hours in the studio having fun since.

.:.

I started with a series of mini-collages on 2”x4” canvases. A fortuitous find in my art supply drawer, the canvases turned out to be a perfect surface to play with because it turns out working with miniature images makes me inexplicably happy! I love my minis and I loved making them.

Cutting these tiny people out of a travel feature in my automobile association magazine and positioning them “just so” made me giddy.

After completing seven minis in seven days I felt a nudge to experiment with a different format.

An 8”x10” backdrop of an old door and broken windows? Oh the possibilities…

Now I play with old 8”x10” photo prints gifted to me by my sister (she also gifted me full permission to alter them). I choose an 8”x10” I like and use it as a background to create a visual narrative, positioning bits & pieces from my stash on it until things feel “just right.” It’s a highly scientific process.

Once I’m done with this format I will move on to the next because the creative possibilities of collage are endless. Thanks to the many sources of inspiration out there I already have other techniques and trials in mind and I greedily look forward to playing even more.

.:.

I discovered that I allow myself much more creative freedom with collage than I do with any other medium – except maybe mobile photography. I bring disparate images from disparate sources together into cohesive narratives, worlds and stories. I use colours and shapes in a way I wouldn’t normally use them when I’m painting.

I allow parts of me to come out that I tend to keep in check: the absurd, the dramatic, the irrational. It is liberating.

I wouldn’t have discovered that if I hadn’t followed the nudge.

.:.

The moral of this story?

If a creative nudge keeps coming back, follow it. Ease into it if you must, but keep taking action.

Research and prep yes, but don’t forget to experiment, play and learn. Go to your art table, whatever that may be.

Stay open. See where that nudge goes and when another one comes along, follow it and see where it leads. Who knows where you’ll end up, but I bet you’ll have fun along the way.

In spirit of discovery,

Stephanie

♥

Paul Klee Exhibition: 5 Takeaways

Last week D. and I finally made the trek downtown to the National Gallery of Canada to see the Paul Klee exhibition.

See how happy I am? I’d had my eye on this exhibition for nearly a year, it was a long time coming.

Several things struck me as we made our way around the gallery. With the (not so) hidden agenda of capturing them for future reference, I thought I’d share them here. Voici, my top five takeaways from seeing Klee’s work:

1. Small is beautiful.

I was very surprised at how small Klee’s paintings were. I’ve seen them in books, but often the coloured plates featured in the books are larger than the paintings themselves. The small scale in no way diminished my engagement with his pieces though, in fact, it made me lean in and look at them more closely. Maybe that was his intention all along.

2. Don’t be afraid to move things around.

Klee would paint a watercolour then cut the sheet in pieces and move the pieces around, switching the order of things. He did this with Temple Gardens, below, and the more I flip through my newly bought Klee books (of course I bought new Klee books!) the more I’m learning that he did this often.

Temple Gardens, 1920, by Paul Klee. Klee cut his original watercolour into three sections and moved the centre one to the left. NOTE: This piece also floored me with its size - about 7”x10”. I thought it would be much bigger.

3. Experiment with different materials.

Watercolour on gesso on fabric, bordered with gouache and ink, mounted on cardboard. That’s a thing, with Klee. He wasn’t afraid to mix materials. It makes me want to experiment with my art supply stash. I bet you have a stash too. I think we should pull out our stashes and play.

4. Let your artistic freak flag fly.

Klee’s pieces rarely depict something as we see it in real life. Overlapping lines and shapes might represent anything from plants or animals to people or spirits. None of these images look realistic yet they still engage and are able to communicate meaning and feeling to the viewer.

Some of these non-representational images birthed by Klee reminded me of images I created in the past that I promptly dismissed and in some cases painted over. I did this because they looked weird and nonsensical, they didn’t look like anything “real”.

Tsk, tsk.

Imagine the tragedy had Klee done the same? Embrace the freak flag, let it fly.

5. Use what you have on hand.

Klee painted on cardboard a LOT, so seriously, time to gesso the back of that cereal box and get cracking! No excuses. If it’s good enough for Klee, it’s good enough for all of us.

.:.

The Klee exhibition is still on until this Sunday, March 17th, I highly recommend it. If you have a chance to see it let me know what you think. I’d love to know what your takeaways are.