Cut it Out! Collage Spurs Creativity
- Janet STRAYER
- Feb 16, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: May 24
Cut it Out!
Feeling at loose ends, unable to do or make anything meaningful? OK, you can choose to wash the car, cook beans, eat yourself silly, run amuck, or try any number of sensible or inane options. If you have even the tiniest creative bone in your body, though, you might try collage. (click here for Feeling Overwhelmed?
You just cut it out and paste it on. You don't need much. Scissors, glue, and things you can and paste on any workable surface. Try cutting pieces of paper, parts of old or discarded magazines, ads, found objects, twigs and bits of nature or bits of junk-- easy to acquire and inexpensive. Keep it simple and don't get too fussy with things you cut out. Then go as crazy as you like. Remember three simple things: Collage_Invent_Escape. It's amazingly rewarding if you don't get perfectionistic. In fact, collage is the opposite of perfectionism and benefits from thinking eccentrically. Collage spurs creativity and os a great entry into making art.
Collage Spurs Creativity
The simple acts of cutting and pasting in making collages offer both escape and inspiration -- and can result in creative products and art.
Collage in Art History
The precursors to collage as an art form include ancient paper-cutting (China) , the decoupage made prominent in 17th C France, as well as the felt and fabric appliqué used in many cultures. Many people untrained in formal schools of art (some now known and respected as practitioners of "Outsider Art") use collage as a means of expression and decoration. Collage remains accessible to all of us. It is, by its very nature, an inclusive art form.
The entry of collage into recognized fine art museums is generally attributed to Picasso and Braque, who pioneered collage in the early 20th century by pasting things into their Cubist paintings. Matisse, as well, created decorative collages by cutting and pasting coloured papers (below) when unable to paint or as inspiration for paintings (below right).
Collage was preferred by artists like Dubuffet (below) and other Dadaists who revelled in portraying the fragmentation of modern life. In words attributed to Dubuffet': “What I expect from any work of art is that it surprises me, that it violates my customary valuations of things and offers me other, unexpected ones” (Smithsonian). Collage continued to be a popular art form with later Pop artists like Warhol. Many Modernist artists, like Robert Rauschenberg, weren't famous for their painting or drawing skills so much as for their sense of collaging things together in ways that worked. They made statements, they surprised us, they made us look at things anew.
People created new vistas by taking collage into political, social and surreal realms, making works that were odd, funny, edgy, meaningful or puzzling. Among my favourite collage artists are Hannah Höch (Dadaist in the 1920s) as well as contemporary collage artists Wangechi Mutu ("YoMama" below), Michael Madzo, and Cindy Sherman's photomontage. My list of favourites is long and the work created with collage is varied. It stretches our perspectives when we look at collage, and even more when we try our own hands at it.
Collage as Escape and Invention
Collage offers an escape from routine work for both artists and non-artists. When stuck in a rut or just needing time to play and explore, collage offers a way out of the routine and in to what you may be looking for, without even knowing what that might be. Find what you like and do it. Don't like it? Cut it up, make it into something else. You can, and that's the gift of collage.
I've tried my hand at collage. A recent attempt was prompted by my memories of having seen so many famous artworks in so many famous museums. I go back to my favourites (some not famous) again and again. I thought about the many different artworks that now live inside me (and probably you, too). They often pop up as visions in my own private museum. Below is part of a collage I made in response to this idea: Le Musée Intérieur (I'm Canadian now and we're bi-lingual).
I love travelling but hate lugging art supplies. So, during a stay in Mexico, I made collages from local magazine and paper images and some inexpensive fabrics. The output shown is from eight of them, a visual journalof ideas sparked by this Mexican trip: Balance; Las Diosas, Our Lady of Eternal Youth, UberWoman at Sixes and Sevens, Dispensing Wisdom, Just Blending In, Surfing the Day of the Dead, Doing it My Way.
Some artwork may not be keepers for our personal museum, but making them can still be satisfying and offer inspiration for further creations. You learn so much just from playing around, experimenting, and from creative decision-making. Whether or not our collages become fine works of art in themselves, they keep creativity alive by pushing boundaries, connections, and inventiveness.
Things Evolve and Change
I started making collage before I knew much about it. Once, when frustrated on a work project, I was at wit's end, so much so that I felt like burning the whole project down! I grabbed a book of matches and, instead, slopped it with glue on some nearby paper. Symbolic action! The resulting mess was not so bad, and at least kept me from burning things down. I've kept this collage hanging in a silver frame above my stovetop for years now. It shows how ordinary and overlooked objects can become surprises in a collage. It's also an important reminder of how our feelings can creatively turn one thing into another.
Much later, I deliberately created a large 30"x 24" collage from olf flea-market magazines obtainrf while living for a time in France. With these papers and acrylic paint, I used collage to express an idea of past and future mingled with opposing desires (poetic aspirations vs. harsher realistic demands) personified by two very different boyhood friends (poet-dreamer and jester).
Back home, with increased confidence gained just by making collages, I created an outrageous assemblage (collage with 3D elements) consisting of three canvases (largest one shown below). I went all out and used dolls, hand-painted leather boots with bead-decorated soles, and smaller hexagonal and square painted canvases mounted on the larger surface .The triptych sold straight away when shown in a group exhibition.
Some years later, the urge returned to create an even larger assemblage. It is true that one creation inspires another. I worked on several paintings during the months spent with a large piece of wood on the floor of my studio that gradually collected possible parts and pieces. I wanted to take my time creating the assemblage because my initial ideas were complex.
The finished work (now in Boston), titled Laundry Day in Birdland (48"x36"x5") includes a "laundry line" strung between two birdhouses that has actual small bird feathers hanging by tiny wooden clothespins (the feathers used don't show up in the photo, so are replaced with white feather drawings). BirdCentral (at left) has twigs and grasses protruding on top and in its birdhouses.
Collage and You?
Too many people, especially adults, seem to feel intimidated by art. As if it asks something of us (and it may). Yet art has always been ready and able to be a valuable part of everyone's life. Collage, in particular, offers a means of creating individual works expressive of whatever one chooses. I fervently believe that art is an essential part of who we are as human beings, as expressed in other columns here. Here's a recent humorous collage whose messageI respect enough to put as a header on my website.
Be a Cut-up!
Collage can tell a story or be an abstract design. What you do with it can be personal, political, or whatever strikes you. Random objects, letters, coloured shapes and things that usually don't go together can find themselves working together wonderfully well in a collage. Mix collage with painting or drawing if you like. If you don't like, no worries. As noted in this post, some renowned artists weren't applauded for their painting or drawing abilities so much as for their sense of putting assembled things together (collage) in ways that make us look at them.
You, too, probably have something interesting to explore creatively with collage. Surprise yourself!
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