Collaging in chaotic times
Art helps block out the sickness and sadness of the COVID-19 world
When artist Jody Joseph put out the idea of a daily collage challenge to four friends (myself included), we all bit.
Since March 17, the group has produced daily works. The challenge has grown from collage to include paintings and assemblage. At last count we’ve made 170 pieces.
“I started the collage collective to control my anxiety at the beginning of the lockdown,” Joseph says from her artist bunker in Dundas.
Making art is mostly a solo practice, and now with the COVID controls, even a catch-up over coffee is off limits. So the simple act of sharing artwork through email delivers a powerful lift to each of the artists.
“As artists, we work alone, this way we have a connection with each in this crazy time of isolation,” says Iris McDermott.
McDermott’s daily paintings are almost a claustrophobic celebration of domesticity. Without moving from her kitchen she captures surprising vitality and beauty in a bunch of carrots, recycling bins and eggs. Often there is a bittersweet glimpse of the outdoors, where spring is struggling to arrive.
Jane Hill is using vintage paper in collages that seem to be thinking aloud. Words, phrases, scribbles and doodles float through the layered pieces. The weathered paper is a comforting and nostalgic element in collages that are built with the precision of modern architecture.
“Many of the works contain words or images that reflect on our or my current life. Some of them are visible, some are not,” Hill says.
Sandy Lambert’s abstract collages are like jigsaw puzzles, the painted pieces of paper are locked down solid, in a world where so much of what we know is floating away.
“Collage in particular allows you to put order in your world, to have control. It’s meditative, the ability to create order from fragments,” Lambert says.
That chance to turn chaos into order appeals to Joseph, too.
“Collage is particularly good for trying to make sense of things. You get to physically engage, move thing around, piece things together to create some resolution, something I thing we are all craving.”
Joseph’s striking pieces often use the front page of The Hamilton Spectator as a canvas. Hands are front and centre, they reach for water, crave touch, fight the virus.
“The sense of touch seemed so compromised.” Joseph says. “No touching, always washing hands, the idea your hands might be dangerous if you touched your face.”
Collage has been the perfect art form for me. It’s similar to writing. You face a blank page and put bits together to form a whole. Words or images are used to tell a story.
I like working with everyday things, cardboard, tape, newspaper, flyers, posters, always contemplating the vast amount of packaging that clutters our lives.
Every walk I take inspires collage — from the paper fragments encountered to leaves, seeds and sticks.
As Joseph described my work: “The reporter’s eye (see self portrait as cyclops). Wide-ranging, restless, quick study, quirky, recorded in a reporters note book. Jotted off.”
While the daily collage production is a wonderful way to keep in touch, “I look forward to the mail every day,” Hill says, it also imposes order in a time of disorder. When schedules are disrupted, routines abandoned, the daily assignment to make something interesting is a quiet gift. The mind blocks out for a bit, the sadness in the world, the sickness, death, financial struggles, and anxiety over what the new world will look like.
Sandy Lambert described it beautifully.
“I’ve embraced solitude. For so long, we defined ourselves by how busy we are. Now we are in a pause. If anything, all we have right now is time.”
“I’ve embraced solitude. For so long, we defined ourselves by how busy we are. Now we are in a pause.”
SANDY LAMBERT