Me and my process
How I created my art book
Except from my art book.
My original intent was to use up my art supplies—paper, glue, and art markers—that’s it—no more significant intent. I made “bad” art or whatever came out. But then I started to like the things I was making, and I felt like writing about them and what feelings they brought up. Again, without some larger agenda, I wanted to use up pens and notebooks.
The writing started out long. I had so much to say—at first. The collection is not ordered in the way I originally wrote them. I felt compelled to organize them by color. I’ve edited them substantially to get to the heart of what I was saying on each.
I did everything by hand. Well, except creating the book itself, as I had to digitize everything for that. :) The collages are all paper and glue. I took pictures of them and then printed my favorites. After printing the collages, I glued them into notebooks and wrote about what called to me—not my original mindset, but my thoughts after I glued them into the notebook. However, sometimes I did include the original intent because it was a strong intent vs. a subconscious bubbling to the surface. Of course, my little art helper was always nearby!
One day, I couldn't figure out what to collage and had too many choices, so I created art dice. I have four of them: one has shapes, and two have different colors. The last has a flower, face, animal, fruit, body, and plant. I roll them and use what's already piled on the collage table. Funny enough, the materials I need are usually near the top. I rarely use the dice these days, but I still love using whatever’s near the top to make a collage or get rid of that stuff.
Some days, all I can do is declutter the collage tables, which feels great. Some days, I organize things I haven’t used into named hanging folders, such as nature, jewelry, animals, people, etc. One day, I threw everything on the floor in a big, sweeping arm motion. Then, I got down on the floor and picked out a couple of handfuls of images I liked and recycled the rest. That was very cathartic. Before the floor action, I felt stuck. After that floor action, I made a few collages that I liked.
I remember that day before throwing everything on the floor, I was creating a water collage, namely photos of water, and trying to make them into something, but nothing was happening, and I got frustrated. That's when I threw everything on the floor. It was a metaphor for drowning in too much collage material.
I don't have a rigid practice. The whole “make your art every day no matter what” doesn’t speak to me. I don’t “collage every day without fail.” I don’t “grunt it out.” I’m lucky because I have a work-from-home tech job, so I don’t have to hurry through my process, but I also don’t dilly-dally with my process. It just depends on the day and what it calls for. I see how my energy is and what the day calls for. Sometimes, I go two weeks without making a collage or even sitting at the tables. That is rare these days as I enjoy it so much.
I collect random free papers wherever I go and use the junk mail and random magazines sent to our house. Sometimes, I have a particular collage in mind, so I find free images online, usually from Unsplash.
I used to describe what I do as a collage, but that wasn't very clear to people. Now, I call it found paper art. It’s very therapeutic, and the mix of images and writing is even more therapeutic. I handwrite, and then I speak the writing into a document.
I once read about the therapeutic nature of writing down something that you want to say or that's bothering you and then reading it verbatim to someone—in my case, the computer. Some things are more challenging to express in images, and some are harder to express in words, so I do both to convey my feelings.
I thought about organizing my book by feelings, but color stuck with me. I put it into the order of the rainbow (ROYGBIV) and then some other stuff at the end. I wanted to capture the feelings of each collage to get an overall feel for the color.
I discovered that my collage colors didn’t correspond to the traditional meanings of the colors. Healing is the most significant theme in the book. It’s funny because I thought it might be more hurt or angry, but healing is what I needed most, so I guess it does come through — from my perspective, anyway.
My perspectives are from the point of view of a cishet woman and my feelings about my place in the world. They may or may not resonate with you. I’m not trying to capture all the various feelings one could have, as I can’t possibly know what others truly experience.
While creating my book, I discovered that others doing big projects may not just be or feel busy. I found the process of making this book very soothing. I didn’t rush or feel busy. It may seem like an enormous undertaking, but it was done with a peaceful energy, not a frantic energy. It definitely changed my view of myself and my place in the world, at least a little bit.
If you want to see my book, it’s available on Kindle and in print on Amazon. I’ve tried getting away from Amazon, and that’s another topic, but sadly, they print so well compared to other services I’ve tried. It’s way better in print, but I get it if you don’t want to shell out all that cash. I did set the price as low as I could per Amazon.
By the way, I have a pen name, so it won’t be confusing when you see it. The real-world me is Josephine, but the art book me is Effie Brush. To keep it separate from my tech book publications.
I want to get the book into the world, not become rich. I offer free deals on Kindle, so sometimes it’s free, but otherwise it’s only $2.99. I wish I could always offer the Kindle version for free, but Amazon won’t allow that. Click here to see my book on Amazon: We Will Never Be Together.
You will see a mix of stuff on my Substack, so it won’t all be art. There will be some Irish language, tech stuff, and whatever strikes my fancy, but I feel like it will be mostly art (and writing about art or writing about writing, perhaps) from now on.
Here’s a snippet of some Irish in my collage book. I do love this about the Irish language and how you talk about feelings in it.
