They’re a little autobiographical in nature, the first three being representative of my life up until entering treatment…
These first 5 were all made in Autumn 2022 while I was in voluntary in-patient psychiatric care for 6 weeks.
It was a positive experience. Everyone working there was phenomenal.
Having an Art Therapist was lovely.
Since then, I’ve only done another collage once: a gift for my Grandma about my love for her and all the seasons we’ve experienced together (no photo of that one).
Tonight, I started working on some more…
Here’s a draft of a few of them… nothing is glued down yet. I’m short a few dozen magazines compared to what resources I had available when I was in treatment.
One with a friend in mind who is going through a tough time:
One on art, nature and humanity:
And one as a bitter sassy critique of the pharmaceutical industry. I’ve been feeling “better” since coming off my anti-depressant. That being said, it’s an artistic statement and not entirely how I feel about prescription medications for mental health.
It’s tongue-in-cheek; after all, I’ve needed anti-depressants off-&-on my whole adult life. Chances are, some day I’ll wind up needing them again.
One of those “don’t necessarily do as I do/say” things. 😉
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Responses
Try as I might, I’ve never been able to make physical collages like these. During one of my inpatient stays, they wanted us to make some…but we weren’t allowed scissors to cut out the images. Mine was a messy, half-assed trainwreck LOL. So I really mean it when I say, these are awesome! They’re super expressive and raw, and knowing just how much effort they take, I can truly appreciate your craftsmanship. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks so much for your comment; I’m getting warm fuzzy vibes from it. I really appreciate it! I was fortunate that these spewed out in flows of artsy luck hehe. I’d find myself compelled to do them, and possessed by the need to finish them. Sometimes obsessively until like 3am.
I don’t usually have the temperament for such tedious tasks because of dissociation, emotional dysregulation, ADHD attention span issues, and a lack of materials to work from. So, these are pretty special to me. I try to paint, but I mostly imitate other works. This was the first thing that made me feel like *my* voice was coming through, even though it was thanks to the work of others.
I know what you mean about it being difficult. I admire the way some artists really get into cutting such tiny pieces and creating seamless illusions — I don’t have the patience. And without scissors?! FORGET IT lol. I tore a wee bit here ‘n there, but scissors were KEY.
If you’re ever looking to try again, it takes a s**** ton of magazines to really get good inspiration because most are so narrowly-focused (and, funny enough: hunting magazines had some great words/titles I used).
I was recommended by the Art Therapist to work backwards through the magazines. This was so that I wouldn’t get wrapped up in what the magazine is trying to show me, and just take whatever my eye is randomly drawn to.
I’d first sort things into big pictures, lil pictures, big words, and little words.
Slowly, patterns of words and images started emerging, and I would loosely assemble them and get an idea of different themes for different collages. The process took on a bit of a life of its own. (The newer ones I’ve worked on at home are more difficult because of a lack of magazine material, so they have a lot less “going on.”)
Fussing with the glue stick is still a frustration for me. I think I wound up switching to painting the backs of the images with school glue to get them to stick.
But I can appreciate why it might not be something you want to try again.
Do you do anything creative/artsy?