Week 51: Now Playing
“Now Playing”
Collage, cut New Yorker Magazine paper, 9" x 12"
INNER CHEERLEADER JULES: It’s your penultimate collage!
INNER PERFECTIONIST PRISCILLA: Such a perfect word—penultimate.
ME: Such a loaded word—penULTIMATE.
PRISCILLA: Well, these last two collages really should be your best work to date, right? The ultimate!
INNER CRITIC URSULA: I mean, they should be. But…
ME: HEY. You two obviously are not going away, even after a year’s worth of regular practice. But right now, I need you to take your “shoulds” and shove ’em.
PRISCILLA: Rude.
URSULA: If you need me, I’ll be in the corner, silently judging you.
ME: Look. I appreciate you two trying to protect me from … the outer critics? But you really don’t have to be so vigilant. I’m a big girl. Why don’t you go treat yourselves to a nice cuppa and a good book? Maybe a hammock and a nap?
PRISCILLA: You mean—relax??
ME: Would it kill you?
URSULA: She’s trying to kill us!
ME: I promise—if I need you, I’ll call.
(PRISCILLA and URSULA slowly and suspiciously back out of the room and begin search for hammock.)
“Fashion District” by Harry Bliss @blisscartoons
The New Yorker, April 17, 2017
Sheesh. It really has been strange to come to the end of this challenge. I have had the thought—won’t it be disappointing if these last two collages aren’t the best ones yet? And I get ideas of all the cool things I could do with them. Then I remember my time is limited. So is my color palette.
It seems like each collage should be more complex than the last. But then I remind myself that I am making a conscious effort to lighten my load as I summit the mountain.
This challenge has been an exercise. To see if I could do it. To see what happens when I have a regular art and writing practice. It has always been about the process. And about transformation. Not about the outcome.
I’m honing skills and hopefully building upon them. There will be time for complexity later.
This week I had to remind myself to take some of that penultimate pressure off. Keep it simple, Shad. And don’t forget to play!
“Now Playing.” I took the notion of children’s building blocks and ran with it. I cut out a slew of imperfect blocks and figured out how to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Not the ultimate earth-shaking piece of art, but it was fun. And once it was finished, I thought it had a little bit of a mod look to it, sort of like the Partridge Family bus.
So here we are, with only one more collage to go!
INNER CHEERLEADER JULES: SQEEEEEEE!!!!!
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED CARTOON
