becoming other things
If there's anything I've osmosed from my mother over the past few years is to (a) believe that anything can become art and (b) to prepare indefinitely for the opportunity to strike by becoming a little bit of a hoarder. My mom (who insists to this day that she 'hates clutter') has amassed a small cave of items related to unrealized art projects - every piece of scrap cardboard has unlimited potential! She gets a pass because she's an elementary school art teacher, and I get a pass because I believe in being prepared and also there is a special beauty in making something into something else.
Such an opportunity presented itself to me in the form of the Chase summer travel catalogue - which was printed on possibly the nicest paper I've ever seen for promotional material.
(The colors, the quality...they knew exactly what they were doing!!)
I immediately stashed it into my paper bag of paper (also to be recycled in other paper making projects - a subject for another time) to not be inspired to travel to far away places as Chase intended, but to make my own places through collage.
There is something to be said for the freeness and logic puzzle element of being presented with a perceived limited amount of options and turning it into something else entirely. To me, it is an art-form that asks you to find the story as you go, instead of up front. It feels similar practice to kurinuki - a pottery handbuilding technique that starts with a hardened block of clay to carve into. The ultimate form (a vase, a cup, a spoon...) are revealed to you through many small acts of carving.
I am guilty of always wanting to know how things end before they start and this forces me to slow down and pay attention. To note how things come together, to make changes as I go, to think about color, and shape, and line in ways that I sometimes rush through when making other things - too excited to see the end product to pay it enough attention.
But the same thing that's freeing about collage - the knowledge that everything can be made into something else if you give it the right attention - transforms every little thing into missed opportunities. More could-be's stacked up in the corner. I guess the moral of the story is save your (nice 300gsm printed) junk mail (and hide it in little piles away from your partner's discerning eyes).
Post Script: A previous collage book that I think about lovingly and often, made alongside a friend on a beautiful September afternoon in a park in 2024.
Post Post Script: Inspiration for this post title comes from Things Become Other Things, a beautiful book by Craig Mod I bought as a gift for Sung a few years ago and I have yet to read (but really want to!!)