A Tribute to Debora Harris ✨ The Process of Collage.
This is discovery.
Collage offers a quiet revelation:
That which is ordinary
can be seen
in an unordinary way.
It begins
with an agreement.
to give attention.
To give attention,
one must gently release
all the other things
that arrive
to claim attention.
This is not a turning away
from what is important.
It is a soft trust
that the whole of your life
every impression
you have ever gathered
will find its way
into what you make,
without needing
to be instructed
by thought.
We begin
by collecting.
You notice
what you are drawn toward.
a hue.
a texture.
a form.
a presence.
As you turn the pages,
there is a small voice
that names everything ,
oh, this chair.
this room.
this floor.
this sofa.
Naming
holds the image still.
keeps it
as what it was called.
If you turn the magazine
upside down,
the name falls away.
you no longer know
exactly what it is.
You begin to see
what it could be.
this is where possibility
enters.
And then
the joy begins.
the material of collage ,
photographs,
printed pages ,
is dense
and abundant.
rich with information.
The practice
is to let your eye
move through the abundance,
to let go
of what does not belong
to this moment,
and to find
the one small fragment
that does ,
that wishes
to be part of your palette
now.
Looking.
gathering.
refining.
what do all these
different fragments
have in common?
Only this:
you chose them.
See the surface before you
not as a board,
but as a space.
A field
where things can meet.
Where you place something
changes everything.
What becomes possible
is decided
by placement.
Move them.
Let them converse.
Let a line
that begins in one
complete itself
in another.
Let colours echo
through likeness,
or awaken
through contrast.
This is discovery.