In honour of World Collage Day, May 11, 2019, Kolaj Magazine is releasing a special edition of the magazine. The Special Edition is full of stories about inspiring collage artists and advice for making, seeing, being collage. The World Collage Day 2019 Special Edition includes the special edition booklet, a World Collage Day 2019 poster and a pack of 8 postcards featuring the collage of Rosie Schinners.
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A Story Much Bigger Than Art
Kelly Schaub, Rockport, Texas, USA
On World Collage Day, Kelly Schaub will be at the Estelle Stair Gallery in Rockport, Texas working with Lisa Baer Frederick and the community of Rockport to make a crowd-sourced collage. Schaub will also be having a solo show of her abstract musings in mixed media collage. Schaub’s story is much bigger than her artwork. Her story is about how one finds a community and champions a medium.
Anywhere & All the Time
Emma Anna, Barranquilla, Colombia
Emma Anna embodies the “collage anywhere” ethos. She has shown her work in public galleries and private spaces, libraries, street footpaths and Chinese restaurants. When she fell in love with a Latin American painter/poet/dreamer, she left her native Australia to move to Colombia where the two lovers opened a creative space on the shore of the Colombian Caribbean. Her life was not supposed to be this way.
Playing with Consensus Reality
Phyllis Famiglietti, New York, New York
A professional film and video editor for 35 years, Phyllis Famiglietti began making paper collage eight years ago. “I needed a break from sitting and looking at a computer screen all day, so the idea of paper collaging was very appealing,” she writes. “I’m a video editor and moving images around is what I do.” Working with clients like photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber helped Famiglietti develop a layering style that became a signature of her video work. That style also comes through in her collage. (image: The Statue of St. Cecilia by Phyllis Famiglietti (9″x12″; collage on paper; 2018))
A State of Grace
Mara Laïka, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Through attentive practice, Mara Laïka found her voice and style. “Unbeknownst to me, I had developed my own language. I love to use circles as some kind of halos. I find the use of black-and-white photographs mixed with colourful elements very appealing. When I try to add more than three elements, I feel my compositions lack sincerity. My only judge is the emotion I feel when I put the different parts together. I’m not really into subversive images or surrealism, but try to capture a moment of grace where my subject reveals its true self.”
I See Collage Everywhere
Isabelle Milkoff, New York, New York
“Collages fill up my apartment, but I can’t stop and I won’t. I feel the universal need to make art. I’m always thinking of the next collage,” writes Isabelle Milkoff who can rattle off the names of collage artists which as much passion as the description of what she loves about them. Milkoff is someone who lives collage.
Meditating, Reflecting, Dreaming
Craig Cloutier, San Francisco, California
“At a deep level everything we do is collage. Painting is collage. Music is collage. Life is collage,” observes Craig Cloutier. “Study quantum physics and you see that the universe is particles constantly splitting, merging, swapping parts to make new particles. The physical art form of collage just makes this phenomenon explicit and is honest about its varied sources.”
Headline Collage
Ava Carmel, Yodfat, Israel
Ava Carmel writes, “About thirty years ago, I spontaneously began creating collages, when trying to deal with a trauma from adolescence. On a whim, I tore some pictures out of a magazine, pasted them on a blank page, and splashed some black and red paint around the edges. Reflecting on my creation, I realized that it expressed exactly what I was feeling. From then on, whenever something was eating away at me, I created a collage. My office was cluttered with stacks of magazines and my bulletin board became a changing exhibition. I found solace tearing, cutting, pasting, and rearranging pictures. I had discovered my personal form of expression.”
The Undefined State of Melancholy
Soraia Aguirre, Turin, Italy
Soraia Aguirre makes collage that focuses on human melancholy as seen through a feminine lens. She writes, “I understand melancholy as a necessary state of mind to know ourselves better and reach higher levels of emotional stimulation. Melancholy is an undefined state. Let’s ask ourselves how we experience melancholy and we can associate it with different moments and experiences, surely different from each other. Melancholy is the chaos and calm of our emotions. I want to present this emotion.” (image: Esa Mujer by Soraia Aguirre (11.7″x8.3″; analogue collage; 2018))
Get Weird With It
Jordan Wade, Cave Creek, Arizona
“Only one small inclusion, if done creatively, can reframe the way the viewer sees the image.” Jordan Wade makes smart, sometimes funny and sometimes serious digital collage that tells complex stories in playful ways. We asked him about becoming a collage artist, how he connects to a community, and what advice he has for up and coming collagists.
The World of Collage Everyday
Koji Nagai, Hiroshima, Japan
From art to objects to book making, Koji Nagai continues in the tradition set out by Tadanori Yokoo and Shinro Ohtake. “I live a simple life and the simple life brings me to the world of collage. I truly love collage and I live in the world of collage everyday,” writes Nagai who notes he “generates ideas for collages based on my first impression of the materials.”
The Magic of Material
Ria Bauwens, Ghent, Belgium
A pile of flower petals obscures a woman’s face. Red thread tries to hold down the petals but ultimately fails. Simple gestures making powerful images is the hallmark of Ria Bauwens’ collage. But more than that, Bauwens is someone who deeply understands the power of material. In the Cut-Out Page she made for Kolaj Magazine, the selection of dried leaves she gives us is a reminder that one can make collage out of anything.
…More
Also in the Special Edition: 2019 World Collage Day Poster Artist Rosie Schinners is on the cover and The Oceanic Feeling by Jordan Wade is on the back. Ric Kasini Kadour reflects on the state of the collage community offers some thoughts on what comes next. And we have a selection of how-to collage books.
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NOTE: The World Collage Day 2019 Special Edition is not included with a Kolaj Magazine Subscription.