Collage can allow you to get very personal. It seems to be a natural progression from photo album to scrapbooking to collage. It also lets you choose to get nostalgic and who doesn't love to walk down memory lane from time to time!
We emigrated from Norway to Canada in the '50's. I was 7. I did not want to go! The thought of leaving everything I knew, especially my grandparents and aunts, uncles, cousins, even boyfriend (yes, that's you Leif-Magne Dalheim!), Torget (the harbour marketplace in Stavanger) and the brown bags full of freshly steamed small shrimp that you ate like peanuts on the bus home, the cobblestone streets, the farm in Klepp, all the little newborn piglets, playing in the fields and getting hungry and reaching down to pull up whatever was growing, dusting it off and eating it right then, 17th of May, the midnight sun, ice cream cake with krokan on my birthday, making marsipan for gift-giving, making heart-shaped baskets to put it in, the ferry ride in Stavanger fjord to get to my grandparents' cottage on Finnoy, going out with my grandfather at 5 am to bring in the fishnets..........
The result: "You Can Go - I'm Staying"
Here is the process:
Pulling together papers, including photocopies of my mother (in the middle) and her family and my grandmother's house, my first report card after we arrived in Canada, a letter and envelope from my grandmother and some other pieces.
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| start |
I don't alter papers ahead of time, although I do make a lot of painted and stained, stamped, silkscreened papers and fabrics. So several pieces had to be "aged" and patinaed. I also auditioned some other papers:
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| re-arranging and decision-making |
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| You Can Go - I'm staying by V. Turner |
Nostalgia appeals to many today. We all long for simpler, more peaceful times. This one sold the day after I made it!
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