WORLD AS COLLAGE – DAY 1

The first posting! Slowly easing into the beginnings of this new collage project, while opening up my studio to all of you – the latter a bit of a digital task, beneath which lies a more profound challenge – to reconnect after all this isolation. So welcome to this, my first offering; a mix of words, verse, observations and of course, images.

Starting early why
wait
don’t overthink
mantra of
the moment materials
pulled out unpacked
days ago now
fragments of color
spread out promising
profusion already
assembling
themselves.

Three hours later, World as Collage Day 1 – Recto & Verso is finished.

 

 

Some preliminary thoughts and a bit of studio history…
This new just-started series begins where I left off with my double-sided collages and paintings which emerged in the spring of 2020. For example, in the seven Spherical Fragments Series collages (sent to Budapest for the Whole>Parts
exhibition) both sides of each piece of work were equally developed. Likewise, the Dark Spots & Black Holes and Spots of Retribution mixed-media paintings, also done during that fateful spring, insisted upon manifesting themselves as both recto and verso. (Several of those pieces were exhibited in the SQD Gallery’s Anticipation exhibition in Manchester, Vermont ).

It wasn’t the first time I had developed both sides of hanging paper pieces, and a double-sided work process continues to hold my attention as both recto and verso develop simultaneously in this newest series. Once again I’ve picked up that same creative thread.

As if working one side isn’t enough, I think to myself; what is this, a flattened sculpture, a 3-D piece steam-rolled into a new identity of flatness requiring attention, simultaneously, to both facets? Reflecting the latent sculptor in me, perhaps?

Look how these collages are put together – constructed, built bit by paper bit, scraps glued together, fusing themselves like a mosaic into one thin-skinned form. This construction of a free-hanging collaged piece continues to intrigue, especially when I step back and think about it. Rather than affixing bits and pieces to an already existent flat bed of paper, these works use an entirely additive process, the very surface of the paper itself fabricated through an act of collaging.

Finally, I’ll share the rules to this visual game. While the work process isn’t exactly play, it is a game of sorts albeit serious, and my creative games have their own playfully challenging rules:

THE RULES TO THIS VISUAL GAME:
1. Use up this lifetime supply of materials
2. Don’t buy anything more
3. Work in unified scale and format; (these limits of dimension developing from the size of the scanner platen)
4. Work double-sided, building a free-hanging piece with equally important recto and verso sides
5. Work simultaneously from both sides, alternating attention to recto and verso throughout the process
6. Take time in placement of the fragments, moving pieces around, taking shots to document different possible assemblages as well as sequential developments during the process
7. At the end of the series, seal each piece with transparent acrylic and hang freely by threads.

 

IDLE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY:
Idle question #1: must a game be play?
Idle question #2: what is play?
Idle question #3: what is work?

Finally, if you’d like a virtual visit to my studio come take a peek at this short video HERE!

 

– Diane Sophrin
  Montpelier, Vermont
  February 9, 2022