Sheila and I have been creating a lot of images in collage lately, both individually and together. In our latest collaborative effort, we revisit an old copy of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. I don’t know where we got this book. It was once the property of the Parkdale Library. It’s been around for a while, and the pages are a little yellowed.
The first thing we did was to remove about half the pages in the book with a utility knife. The reason for this is that the collage work adds a good deal of thickness to the book, and removing pages up front compensates.
We don’t have rules for doing this kind of work together. We both have access to the book and the piles of old magazines and photos we use. Usually we alternate working on some pages. I’m certain that neither of us has a vision for the completed book when we start it.
Sometimes one or the other of us will take a spread quite far in terms of developing the image. Other times, we’ll simply glue something down to get a start on a page. Pages are usually in various states of completion. Completion simply means both of us are satisfied we don’t want to add or subtract anything.
This book contains dozens of collages all developed during the pandemic. Here are some samples….
and some more…..
These pictures give some idea what we’re up to with these collage books. The only way to really fully appreciate the images is to pick up the book and flip through it at your own pace. I like that these images are prisoners of the book. They’re not for hanging on a wall. One day some of them may become starting points for paintings. Who knows.
27th Street 