August 21, 2024
Collage Botanica Diary, 9
A few observations of my experience as I work through Session 2 of Amanda Evanston’s Collage Botanica class:
• I am working very slowly, one micro-unit at a time.
• Sometimes I get impatient and leapfrog over a step but inevitably have to go back when my leap doesn’t serve me. It usually does not.
• I watch the class videos over and over again, in small increments.
• It feels good to make a few pieces under the direction of someone other than myself, to put myself in their paintbrush or glue pot to try on their approach.
• I tighten up and/or feel timid in response to some part of the process almost every day, sometimes more than once.
• I am getting into my studio more regularly than I have for quite a while.
• The act of creating nourishes me.
The story of a serendipitous gift that came my way this week:
In looking for a set of bookmarks I’d made months ago, hoping to use them in a project unrelated to Collage Botanica, I ended up having to look through and handle just about every single painting or exercise I’ve done on paper that hasn’t found a home outside my studio since mid 2014.
The effort was hindered by my studio’s having offered itself up as a guest room several times this summer. Any organization that might have eased my search had been disrupted repeatedly and, as it turned out, the bookmarks did not reveal themselves until I went to the last place I could think of to look. The gift was that en route I discovered what riches I had by way of potential collage fodder. I am giddy with abundance!
I think I originally leap-frogged the step of stocking the metaphorical walk-in cooler of the metaphorical florist shop in which I am creating my Collage Botanica floral arrangement, i.e. I was meant to work out my color palette in advance of painting/collaging my current work in progress, gather (or paint) papers that would become the greens and blooms I’d use, and plop hand-sized pieces into metaphorical buckets of water to keep them fresh as I assembled my arrangement.
All of the above is a short-story-long telling you that I had grand fun stocking my walk-in cooler once I leapt backward to do so!
greens and blossoms in the walk-in cooler
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4 responses to “Collage Botanica Diary, 9”
Lola, thanks for the nod/hug re my getting more studio time. SO nourishing. SO many seemingly urgent tasks to be shoved aside to get there. I just spent an hour in simple joy playing with how to take a sheet of plainish collage paper and transform it into fodder for flowers to add to the cooler. YAY!!!
Sheila, thanks for getting what a gift it was to sort through old work and discover the riches therein related to my current project. I think it was at this point that I really came alive to deeper levels of fun and possibility just waiting to be tapped : )
And OMG! Your walk-in-cooler looks soooooooo inviting! Filled with blossoms of color and texture and OH LA LA!
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