My adventures in daily collagery began with an inquiry: What happens if I make a collage each day for 100 days? Where will the journey lead? To hold myself accountable and share my work each day I created a blog. Many times in the 100 days I saw paths unfolding.
I chose to keep the project on a kindergarten level, cutting, tearing, and pasting. I used paper, glue stick, and scissors. Keeping the budget small, I primarily used magazines that were found or donated.
As the project unfurled I could glimpse the depth of beauty and discovery in the blocks and breakthroughs that emerge from a plain and simple process of daily creative practice, I began to see this journey as an exploration of the Self in bits, pieces, and layers.
In retrospect, I see there were premonitions. A cat would soon come to live with me and profoundly change my life.
Six months down the line I would come upon a husband-and-wife-owned dance studio and begin taking classes. I’ve been dancing there for over 5 years now.
Throughout the project there were many magical landscapes and creatures.
To be with these images was to be in touch with amusement, whimsy, mystery, and the wonder of internal and external reality. I also learned a lot about line, color, depth, and composition, just from playing around with scraps. I was so moved by the first 100 days of creative practice that I decided to extend the project to a full year. Look for future posts on the year of collage-a-day and it’s offspring: 31 Hellos from the Divine Feminine.
Tisa Marie Batchelder is an early childhood educator and music teacher in Chicago, Illinois. She writes songs, plants gardens, makes visual art, and develops her intuition. Tisa is interested in how the information that comes through her artwork and lyrics can be both a record of and a guide to her self-discovery, transformation, and growth. You can see and hear some of her creations at her Collage-a-Day site, her Facebook page for The Pollinator’s Friend, and her SoundCloud site.