Life’s a Collage…

I would never be writing about collage if it were not for Michelle Casey and her Collage-Your-World art practice.

I met Michelle a few years ago at an Artist Educator Course, run by the Royal Conservatory of Ontario.   That course included an exercise where participants were asked to describe different forms of intelligence, as a collage. My task was “Interpersonal” intelligence, that is “People People”. I tore up an advert showing a line of children (overlayed with graphics showing their potential vocations) to form a daisy-chain of connected people.  At the time I was quite proud of my work and kept it:   I liked the way the message was perhaps the stronger through the use of this “found image”.

Collage sometimes still gets a bad rap, both inside and outside art circles. In contemporary art, “found objects” have been hip since Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal (turned on it’s side mind you) to an exhibition in 1917, however then when it comes to collage:  “collage is for kids”. Go figure. We all use reference material, so why be shy with it? There’s a sharp edge (no pun intended, really) in using gathered material.  All of these pieces forming a new puzzle… There they all are, fixed in a new space and playing their part in a new production, a new narrative. I also like the surreal-ness of it all.

Michelle’s art is always deeply personal: the image and text fragments telling stories that would certainly lose something in other media. Introspective on the one hand, there’s equally a reaching out, a power for changing lives and life relationships in a surprisingly direct way. Check out Michelle’s Art and her Fall Workshops at collageyourworld.com.

May your scissors ever be sharp!