Learning Moments

A summer of scissors, glue, and paying attention

“Life is collage,” my friend Tenneson Woolf says. I’ve always found that intriguing — and somehow, very true.

My summer flow was a collage. 

Walking through the Dutch landscape, I saw a mix of colours and shapes everywhere. Patches of grass had already turned yellow and brown, while others still had some green. The heath was partly dried out, with small purple blossoms here and there. Looking up into the trees, I saw greens fading into brown. And this was already in August. Nature is a collage. A somewhat sad one, in this hot, dry summer — even here.

The days themselves fell into a pattern of their own: walking with the dog, an early swim in the sea, coffee with a friend, and then back to my studio.

There, my project was collage. I made my own collage paper and played with shapes and colours. It’s a quiet, slow process. The collages stayed on my table for days, sometimes weeks. I would look at them, move a piece, leave it for a while, and come back again.

*****

Collage is layers. Adding and taking away. Scraping off. Covering up. Making something visible.

I’ve noticed that it’s easier to add than to take away. Yet sometimes a collage only starts to work when something is removed.

Collage is process. Looking. Noticing. Letting things sink in.
It’s the feeling that something is right — or not.
Sometimes you know where a piece belongs.
Sometimes it falls into place by chance — and it’s exactly right.

*****

I’m collage too. Made up of layers — experiences, memories, ideas, thoughts. A pattern of habits, reactions, relationships, connections.

Always changing. Always growing. Always renewing.

Some facets I know well. Others I hide, cover up, or let go of entirely. Some I’m only now uncovering.

Some things begin to show — not by adding something new, but by discovering what was already there.

The surprising wonder of being. Layers.

Perhaps that is what I find so intriguing about collage. It isn’t simply about putting fragments together. It is also about seeing what is already here, shimmering through from underneath.

Sitting at my desk this summer, scissors and glue in hand, I had time to think about all this. The collages couldn’t be rushed. Neither, perhaps, can life. 

*****

Maybe I am a collage in progress. A little unfinished. And certainly never finished.

Perhaps that’s simply what it means to be alive.

What if you looked at yourself as a collage in progress?

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The bit at the end

Exciting events on the horizon to support your exploration:

• What if the most rebellious thing you could do right now is pause?
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• Curious to experience Street Wisdom for yourself — inspiring, surprising, and quietly powerful? Reach out, and let’s wander with wonder through the streets, alleys, and bridges of Alkmaar, Amsterdam or Nijmegen. Learn more about Street Wisdom here.
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Reach out; I’m always open for a chat.
Creatively,
Nadia

P.S.The paintings featured on the blog are my own.