What with no one telling me until the last minute whether they'd be here or not, our monthly collage party started off on an uncertain note. In the end, everyone did show up except for Katherine whose telephone was out of order. Without her over-the-top energy, our group was more subdued than usual; outwardly, that is.
I don't know why I bother to call it a collage party since no one's been doing much collage lately. Our collective energy has taken a turn into various Other Things. Christina worked on one of her art journals while I, following her example, bravely continued to work on mine, though I felt uninspired. Bob wasn't feeling well (allergies). He started a collage, but soon gave it up to lie down on the couch. Chris and Barbara furiously painted and pasted on Chris's curved wooden boards. I painted, too, covering my book with black acrylic. Bone Black. My favorite shade. So dark. So smooth.
Barbara brought some paintings she'd done, wonderful wildly-layered abstracts. She began tearing them apart, distributing pieces generously around to all of us. "I love tearing paper," she announced, gleefully.
"So do I!" Christina exclaimed. I used some of the torn bits as backgrounds for my stilted book. Fear of not making it perfect; that's my problem, but her layers of bright yellow paint set my pages on fire. I worked for hours after everyone else had gone: altering, cutting, pasting and painting.
I love the way we all borrow from each other; not only materials but also ways of working. We startle each other into life and warmth and before you know it, we've amazed ourselves with unexpected results.
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