INGREDIENTS LIST
What goes into a project is as pertinant as the process and finished product. That said, I will have you know
that a very large percentage of my raw materials for my art comes from recycled or reused materials.
My paper is 100% recycled post consumer waste - that is, I take every sort of junk mail credit card
offer, brochure, advert, etc and shred them all with a gleeful smile. Any old bits of paper that I find
lying about are fair game also - especially paper bags, colored flyers, old work schedules, copy paper...you get it.
If my junk paper is colored then I sort the colors so I can make specifically colored batches. I also use RIT
liquid dye for when I desire brighter colors. I love to throw in violets from the backyard, cactus blossoms,
bits of tea, glitter, and other fun household items as inclusions in my paper, and I also enjoy marbling
the paper using the quick and dirty "shaving cream" method. My marbling ingredients include such things
as RIT, food coloring, Dr Martin's watercolors, and acrylic inks.
My puzzles and bookmarks are done on cereal box cardboard or backs of old sketchbooks. All the fabrics I use
are scraps from my days as a costume designer or from thrift store finds, so I have quite a variety of textiles to choose from for both journal covers and bookmark tassles. The puzzle containers, lenormand card tins and shrines are reused "altoid" tins covered with paper, paints and varnish. I collect pretty wrappers, used tissue paper, gift wrap, old greeting cards, thrift store trinkets and sometimes scavenge the streets for pictures or baubles to use as embellishments. I love using pieces of discontinued wallpaper from books my husband has so thoughtfully salvaged from the trash for me. The bottlecaps come from everywhere- my fridge, friends, the beach...and jar lids are fair game too as they make great magnets.
The majority of the stamps I use to decorate my items are all handcarved - the larger from some eraser like material I get from work,
and the simpler smaller ones from wine corks. There are occasions that the dollar store has provided me with some fun finds to add to my collection.
As far as my imagery, I favor anything old, and the older the better. I'm especially fond of old book engravings. I am drawn to older images because they are things that have been living in the collective unconscious for longer, and being that my themes tend to be dreamlike, this seems more suitable than anything modern. In general, I like a certain dreamy timelessness or antiqueness in my subject matter. My images are gleaned from various online sources that either provide public domain images or images that are fair use/creative commons. As a collage artist in this day and age, it has been made very difficult by our ridiculously complicated and overly restrictive copyright laws to figure out what is and isn't safe to use. Especially when you take into account the amount of works that should be in the public domain because of sheer age, but sometimes have a tendency to have copyright claimed on them by people who have "compiled them" but have no relation to the original creators because they want to make money off them. Because of this I am making available on my links page the various image resources I use, and am in the process of sifting through some of my own photos to add to a collage group on flickr. My photos, meager collection that they may be, I am adding for others to use without restriction of any sort because I believe tha artists should have free resources to draw creatively from.
My message to collage artists- use your best judgement in finding images. Unfortunately, the laws are made difficult on purpose because some people care more about making a profit than about creativity. But we don't have to let that get to us. Do what you can to be fair in your usage. There are lots of freebie sites out there, and lots of kind people who are willing to provide images that we can use fairly. The best thing you can do, if you have any images to donate is to share them. The more we pool together our resources, the more we'll have to work with.
As you may well see, I'm fond of seeing what I can make out of whatever is lying about, a method that
has worked well for my cooking and seems to be applicable to art as well. Half of my work is all about being
resourceful, a quality that I consider an important component of creativity. It's the difference between
going out and buying a predesigned kit to make paper, and realizing that you can make your own
custom kit for less and get more joy out of it.