Today is the first time in at least the past 5 years that I’m not hosting an event to celebrate World Collage Day. It didn’t hit me like that, until I woke this morning, so I decided to honor the day with a semi-retrospective slideshow of my work as a collage artist. Semi, sort of, in chronological order, beginning around 2005 through this year, but not even close to the number of images I really wanted to share with you.
Here’s one that didn’t make it in:
And here’s another one I’m quite fond of:
And this one:
It’s funny how each one of these images takes me right back to a certain time and place. Where each element was gathered. Conversations the work inspired.
Memories of people, and moments, and seasons.
Littered with meaning in each scrap of paper and in each composition. Each one a seed planted. A door opened. A step taken.
Collage Artist. I used to balk at that title. I still do, sort of. I hate that artists are defined by their medium. I am an artist. I am also a writer. And a human. But I’ll own it now, I can always see best in hindsight.
I am a collage artist. It’s true.
Collage, for most of my working career, has been my main medium. Now, if today is the very first time our paths have crossed online, or if you’ve only just met me recently, this may be news to you.
Here on the blog, my bio proclaims that I have always been a writer. Also true.
There is little evidence of my old focus on collage in my explorations and teachings in the past few years. At least if you didn’t really know that part of me.
Putting together this little slide show has me feeling a bit bleary eyed and nostalgic. Actually, I think it’s this hell virus, that is not Covid, plaguing me all week that might be responsible for the bleary eyes, but I digress.
I’m feeling nostalgic for all the years and all the ways that collage has impacted my life. For finding the path that has my name.
If you take one step
Then you will be
A little closer to your dream
Than if you stay just where you are
Keep that chin held up
And fight your battles
With your feet and heart both bare
You'll find a path that has your name
~ Maya Johanna, When the Sky
If we met anywhere in the virtual world and possibly almost anywhere in real life, collage was responsible for it.
Collage was the first step on my path, that led me to who I am today.
It was the art of collage that stirred up my long forgotten high school dream of becoming an artist.
Collage was responsible for bringing me my first teaching opportunity. Collage allowed me to travel all over the country teaching and meeting many of you.
Collage brought my first opportunity to be published. Invitations to be a contributing artist and writer in many books and magazines came my way because of collage.
Collage allowed me to write my very first book.
Collage led me to explore every single medium I’ve dabbled in. The gateway drug of my art world.
It was collage that led me to try my hand at assemblage. It was collage that inspired me to enroll in a jewelry Metalsmithing program. It was collage that implored me to combine that with encaustic medium.
Collage led me to paint and to draw, and to gather materials, and mediums, and objects, and people.
Collage made me brave.
Collage led me to enter major shows, and win fellowships, and attempt things I never would have imagined myself achieving.
Collage is responsible for the decision to write my second book. Collage gave me confidence.
Each step of the way collage has been there. Each scrap of my life represented in those bits I gathered. Every story I’ve lived is poured out on those canvases, represented in the abstract of weathered and worn and salvaged scraps. And also in the ones that were glorious.
Every precious piece of found ephemera I thought I was saving from the local landfill, was in fact, saving me.
I am not being facetious.
Each step I’ve taken, each next right thing in my healing/life/artistic journey, has its roots in collage.
Collage has given me my voice. And it made me passionate about you finding your voice too.
Well dammit, I guess it’s not the blasted head cold after all. I am downright weeping with gratitude.
Let go of the need
To be an image that you've sketched
On pages of your mind
Just watch it fade away
And give your powerful consent
To be a traveler
Guided by your gift
You'll find that you're a guide yourself
~ Maya Johanna, When the Sky
Take a moment, well, four and another twenty seven seconds to be exact, to watch the slideshow and really listen to the lyrics of the music accompanying it. Turn the speaker up and let it reverberate through your body. Let it brush up against that something you’ve tucked in so deep, you barely remember it.
What is it? That thing that keeps waking you in the wee hours of the night? That dream, you long for, but haven’t let yourself imagine could ever be possible for you? That voice whispering inside of you that knows what you need to do, but you keep shutting it down?
What image have you sketched on pages of your mind that hold you back from being guided by your own gift?
Don’t dismiss this line. A gift is not something you are born with. It is a beacon, sending you clues from deep inside. A gift is a treasure to be unearthed.
It is an invitation to take that one step. The one that quickens your heart and fuels your dreams.
Not the step that gets you over some sort of imagined finish line. It is the step that you keep finding yourself on the verge of, but keep convincing yourself that it’s not in the cards for you. That dreaming about it is frivolous.
I promise you, that it is the step you are meant to take. And it will lead you to the next one. And it will be hard. And there will be a backlash. And things will look like they’re falling apart. But for hindsight.
In hindsight you will see it. That gift that has been leading you. Each step of the way bringing you closer to knowing and becoming fully you.
That understanding that your life has been stitched back together with nothing but paper and glue.
Take that step.
And then the next one. And the next one. And the next.
There is no finish line. There is no flare gun lighting up the sky to show you where you’re supposed to be.
There is only now.
Here I am
I'm ready to go again
Ready to say goodbye
When the sky is high
No reason to stay on ground
Lift your hands and you can touch it
Fly!
~Maya Johanna, When the Sky
Currently on my radar:
I created a new section on the blog called The Daily; intended to be a place I can write off the cuff, short posts, recap daily tasks that make up this working artist’s life, share the running to-do schedule, and post just generally anything I used to on my Facebook account.
New subscribers will automatically receive these posts in their inbox, but the majority of you will need to go to your account settings on Substack and toggle the new section on to receive these posts in email format.
You can always read them when you visit the blog by looking for the tab at the top of the page. Check it out directly through this link.
I just started listening to a podcast by the author of How to Keep House While Drowning, called Struggle Care. It is a balm to my lack of executive functioning neurodivergent brain. Especially helpful in understanding what that means is this episode:
Speaking of the daily tasks, I’ve been in a vortex of filming my newest course the past few weeks. Construct: Plaster and Paint is opens on the website this Wednesday and is now open for registration at this link.
It All Comes Down to Collage