For my second project, I wanted to experiment with collage. I’ve been inspired by the collage work I’ve seen by fellow students at the Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the ways they’ve blended collages with soul work and depth psychology. While watching their presentations I was entranced by the colors, symbolism, and the feelings being stirred in me, even when I had no idea what exactly I was looking at.

There was a student, Holly Trent, that works with collage and maps, and I was struck by the concept that one could literally create a map to visually represent their journey or inner world. There was another student, Binyamina Bee, whose presentation blew me away. She spoke of working with feminine archetypes of shadow and darkness, and grief, and hungry ghosts that crave and yearn. All of this resonated deeply with me, and I knew I wanted to explore it more. I signed up for Binyamina’s workshop Goldmining the Shadows, and started to look into SoulCollage, another component of her work. Binyamina’s class was ultimately cancelled due to health reasons, but I’m really looking forward to attending a later workshop when they’re available.

I knew I would no longer be attending Binyamina’s workshop, but I still wanted to cut up images and see what would arise. I pivoted by turning to the Joy Collage workshop led by Maria Mendoza, titled “The Alchemy of Collage'' that delved into collage as a practice for the soul and psyche. The workshop explored different styles of collage, as well as the origins of the medium, and its connections to depth psychology. It also offered an invitation to work with images that simply call to us, without trying to interpret their meaning, or preplan the end result.

The trickiest part of this process has been actually allowing myself to embrace this part. Although I often allow my work to shape itself as it comes together, this intention called forth more unconscious energy, as well as trust, and willingness to create something that might not make sense to me right away. The first collage I made was in response to the prompt given in the workshop: to create a collage of a figure that spoke to us, or represented us in some way. We’d find or assemble a figure, and true to the medium, mix and remix elements in our page. Maria reminded us a few times to not look for any specific images, and to allow the process to guide us. Whatever called to us, that is what we were meant to work with.

The first figure that ultimately called to me was a young girl that was sitting on the floor touching her knees. She looked vulnerable to me, and something in the way she seemed to exist quietly and with herself spoke to me. The tricky part came when I found myself wishing she and I were closer in skin tone, that she wasn’t as white, because how could I pick this white red-haired girl to represent my inner child? And then I thought about how fucked up that question made me feel. Then I saw the stream of white bodies and faces and statues and white-looking deities on the magazines and websites I was browsing through, and I knew that I weird as I felt about questioning the image, my resistance was coming from a bigger place. I also knew that if I were to continue to do collage work I’d need to make a point to have access to images and spaces where I can find faces that look more like me. So that when I do this work I don’t feel further fragmented, the opposite of what I want collage to do for me. Although I imagine that some of these images might do a lot for my psyche if they are different and far from me, because then they can also help me tap into unseen or repressed parts of myself. I’m new to SoulCollage, and to creating collages of archetypes and figures, so there’s just a lot I don’t know. Thankfully I have plenty of time (and workshops) to explore this more.

I ultimately made a few collages with magazines and glue, and digitally e via freemix and Canva. I kept making different ones, thinking that I hadn’t made ‘the one’ yet. Maybe I hadn’t fully taken in what Maria had said, and was trying to impose my own will on them. Knowing that I’d be writing about them and presenting this through my project also messed with my ability to fully let go. Eventually, I knew I’d have to work with the constraint, as I had originally envisioned and planned for.

These projects are meant to be done over a short amount of time, so that I lessen my tendency to overthink and over-plan, and instead jump quicker into experimentation. And they are meant to be presented via this blog container, so that I can document the process, see my progress, and so that I may offer something as I go. If I can share what I’m learning and what’s showing up for me, I can build more community, and connect with people that also want to share and collaborate, that also focus on process. So I’ve had to remind myself that it really is less about the final result, and more about showing up consistently, experimenting, collaborating with myself and mediums and people, and then, letting it all teach me what it needs to teach me.

So with all that said, I knew I needed to give room to what I created, honoring how it came together, and that true to its invitation, much of it I’m still unsure of what it means. I have ideas, and the writing activity that we did to engage with our figures helped too. Maria directed us to read our entries to ourselves, and highlight what struck out the most. For me it was, “Our bodies. We are real, and vulnerable”.

I don’t know how this will develop. My collage practice, or my 52 Projects, or any of it really. But I’m in it already, so soon I’ll see. These collages are also very different from each other (especially the digital ones), and they all came from me. That’s something too.

Let me know what resonates, and/or how your collage or creative practice is looking like these days.

Resources and links:

Project #2: Collages