Collaging

In middle school collaging was the “it” thing to do when you took your mother’s copies of Harper’s or Vogue and cut out the most expensive brand names possible, glued them to a piece of paper and put the paper into the clear plastic located on the front of your binder or posted them on the inside of your locker.  At about the age of 10 I wanted so desperately to have “cool” collages like the other girls I went to school with so I tried to do the same thing but using Nickelodeon magazine and Forbes did not yield quite the same result.  However, in attempt to put my own spin on it I began collaging using pictures of products instead of brand names.  The result, I liked much better and over the past 10 years I have not stopped. 

In high school I graduated from 8.5×11” pieces of paper to the backs of doors, entire walls, and once, even a bureau.   To do this my best friend became ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape. The super sticky tape, when rolled into little loops, allows pieces of heavy magazine paper and card stock to stay stuck to a wall for years on end, but also allows cutouts to be easily rearranged if need be. Then, eventually when I move or get tired of the pictures or images they come off the wall without leaving a mark – what could be better?!

Before I went to college I collaged 24” by 36” posters using photos that I hung on my dorm room walls and made a new one every year to commemorate the best memories of those previous twelve months.  I even made ones for my brother and good friends of their favorite pictures, but not too many because they take hours and hours to create. Needless to say any kind of collaging can be enjoyable, however my favorite is still magazine clippings on the back of doors- definitely one of my favorite things.