Soul Searching With Scissors

For several years I have found scissors to have a unique significance in my life, as they are, without a doubt, a contraption that I could not live without. Meticulous cutting in my process as a collage artist is essential for all creations I produce. While I have tried using craft knives, I feel that the motions of my hands with scissors allow a more therapeutic aspect. Cutting and curving through the images that I work with soothe my soul, healing me in a way that cannot be compared with any other tool. The process of the scissors sliding and looping as I work allow me to travel beyond the stresses of life and into worlds in which I create within my mind through my collection of pictures and patterns. Not only do I see my scissors as therapeutic, but they are the source from which my creativity is channeled into the medium of art in which I choose to express myself. If I was told that I had to throw all my art supplies away but could keep only one tool, I would without question choose my scissors, as I see them as a noteworthy tool in both my creative and personal healing process.

Over ten years ago I found myself independently supporting my child, as well as be diagnosed with clinical depression. The emotions that are attached to a mental illness hold a lot of weight, but in combination of being a single parent my emotions were almost unbearable at times. Life was not easy for me, and I was in dire need of a creative outlet. Before this time in my life, I had the means to use many mediums to express myself as an artist, but at this point finding money to feed my passion was next to impossible. My daughter and I were living with my parents at the time, and I found some vintage magazines in their home. I was creatively stimulated by the texts and images I found within the pages, and while I did not know how to use them creatively, I knew that I could somehow find a new form of art to create. I started cutting pages of interest out and saving them, finding that as I methodically curved and zig zagged paths around the images and patterns of my choosing, I had discovered a way to allow my mind to enter a state of ease. Scissors quickly became a tool to assist in a new journey of self-healing.

Along with glue and anything else I could find to work with, I began to use scissors to enter an unfamiliar, yet exhilarating process in a world with a new creative territory to explore. Finding inventive ways to transform my clippings and produce art with the creative outlet of collage had unearthed a newly found feeling of internal happiness.

The moments spent cutting out of the magazines and other sources I had found provided a sense of therapeutic healing that I still find to this day. Even if there are no plans of how I will put the images I have assembled to use, I am still able to create and escape through my scissor cutting process, offering my mind moments to break free from my mental hardships. I have even found that there are times when cutting simple shapes or strips of paper is the most therapeutic aspect of all.

There have been a lot of changes in my life and in my art since beginning the therapeutic expedition with scissors that I have found. The work that I have produced has transformed tremendously, and I still find myself going back to my first collages to reuse them, building new images or cutting out forms for other pieces. I love that I can print out my original works to reuse if I choose, never having to destroy them.

I have to say that I don’t know where I would have been as an artist had I not picked up the scissors when I was going through the dark times and struggling with my mental illness in the early stages of motherhood. While I still create worlds of escape through collage, I now use more than just magazine clippings. I started with a drawer full of sources that expanded into a closet, which later expanded into a room full of materials and tools to work with. I have many different types of materials and tools to utilize for my passion of collage, taking advantage of precision tools such as rotary cutters and trimmers, and I am now able to use quality scissors and shears for smooth and precise blade cutting. Punchers, stamps, stencils, and decorative paper also help to create shapes and patterns, and I have recently taken my progression to another level by finding ways to add movement and motion into the imaginative world of collage by incorporating stop motion filming techniques. However, without finding the companionship of my scissors, I could have never progressed to this level of creation. Creating art is my passion and one of the biggest aspects of my life. Scissors are a friend that I hold dear in my process, and they will always have a very special place in my heart.