Let the Light Shine Through
When I first started making this paper collage, I had no idea how it would turn out -- or what the process was trying to teach me.
I had recently purchased some beautiful art paper featuring black circles pressed into a feathery white surface. Surely, I told myself, I can do something with this. But what?
First, I tried placing a page from my journal behind the circles: handwritten words glimpsed through handmade paper. Despite its apparent translucency, however, the pulpy white paper proved too opaque for the inky letters to show through. Texture trumped text.
Next, I decided to try gluing colorful origami paper behind the handmade paper. I was staying at a remote farmhouse in Switzerland at the time but managed to acquire from a local grocery store some school glue, a pastry brush, and a pair of nail scissors.
Rather laboriously -- it took me nearly an hour -- I cut solid-colored circles from the origami paper to match the black circles on the art paper. Here's what the back side of the collage looked like after I glued the colored circles in place.
And here's what the finished collage looked like when I flipped it over and laid it flat on a table. The result was disappointing: pleasant but not inspiring. Why had I even gone to all that trouble?
But then I held my collage up to a window. The circles glowed, and everything became clear -- not just why I'd made it but what it could teach me about writing:
Keep going.
Trust the process.
Try new approaches.
Let the light shine through!
Perhaps I should have tried writing some inspirational words on the colored circles -- an indistinct poem unfurling in spiraling letters. Would the result have looked brilliant, I wonder, or totally naff? Should I go back now and give it a try: peel away the colored circles and start afresh?
No, I'll let this one go. That's another writing-related lesson I've learned from my collage practice: sometimes you just have to leave the dried glue in place. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
Warm thanks to the participants in my recent Creativity Catalyst short course for helping me see the light!
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