Holding Something Beautiful

There is something frenzied and almost beautiful about the way I collage. I collect a stack of magazines, and then, almost as if I’m going to war against the paper with scissors as my only weapon, I attack with a vicious hunger, pulling out the images that strike me in some way. I often end up with way more images cut out than I can even use.

I always say I’ll use those other images later, but there’s something about being in the moment of making that makes me forget. I feel so single-minded, focused intently on a vision that starts out cloudy and intangible, but slowly becomes more real as I put scissors to paper and rip out what’s beautiful.

It’s always about what’s beautiful -- in those moments before I know what kind of image I’m going for, I’m just pulling out everything I find beautiful. The shape of this flower, the look in that girl’s eyes, the color of a dress, the feeling of a building. These images come to life and jump at me as I flip through the pages, and I can’t just ignore them.

Sometimes, the collage I end up with doesn’t even make sense to me. I’ll admit it; I don’t always know what I’m doing. I’ll end up with a mash-up of images that look beautiful and come alive in a new way, but I couldn’t explain what it means for the life of me. I can’t explain why the composition ended up the way it did, can’t explain why the color palette ended up the way it did. All I can always say is that I find it beautiful; that I found the images beautiful and that I find the result beautiful. That, in my mind, they belonged like that the whole time.

And the rest of it is beautiful too -- the scraps of paper strewn across my desk and floor, the extra images that I’ll never use, the several pairs of scissors that lay ‘missing’ in spots where I couldn’t see them. It’s all beautiful.

Maybe it’s so beautiful because of the happiness it brings me.

The frenzied feeling of creating something sometimes feels stressful to me. I want to create with abandon, but paint and clay and charcoal don’t always satisfy that need to create with a reckless, impulsive energy. They require focus.

Sometimes I don’t want to focus. Sometimes I want to take my scissors and go to war with the paper. I want to feel the creative energy seeping into my bones, and I want to tremble with that energy. I want to create without a plan, without a care. I want to take out all my negative feelings in that war with the paper and come out on the other side, calm and holding something beautiful.

Creating sometimes feels like a storm I’m in the middle of; feeling so much inspiration and armed with so much training and skill, and trying to balance all these different feelings and themes I want to pour into my work. I want to say so much, but there’s only so much that can be said in one work. I try to take it one piece at a time, slowly building up the story I want to tell. Slowly pushing my way through the storm. It sometimes feels frustrating. I at times want to never create again. There are days when nothing comes easy, and my skills feel like they’re falling apart. I feel like I’m being pulled apart by the winds of the creative storm.

But at times I create something -- be it a collage, or a painting, or a sculpture, or a poem -- and it’s like the storm clouds clear for a moment. That’s enough to keep me pushing through for longer. That’s enough to keep me going. When I hold something beautiful I’ve made.

This beautiful frenzy is worth all the struggle and more.