Collage

I like collages.  No, I love them.  I can't help it, but every time when about to throw something away, I think it might be useful for something else—like a collage. I might like the pattern on a kleenex box, design on a cracker package, color of a tea bag wrapper, or the texture of orange bag netting. I hate throwing that stuff in the garbage. It actually hurts to do so.

I teach art to kids, which offers a reasonable excuse to save these things. I keep them for the culmination of the school year in my art class--the collage project. Some kids love it, some hate it, but it is my pièce de résistance as an art teacher. My heart and soul burn with passion for collage day.

Long before the date arrives, I am cultivating my collection of treasured bits of ribbon, foil, puzzle pieces, bottle caps, cardboard cartons, magazine pictures, scraps of colored paper, and whatever else emerges along the way. Precious items have been saved that had no other use--multiple extra copies of my Uncle Chris' hand-written music, greeting cards from loved ones...things I could not possibly throw in the trash. All this stuff is stored in a couple of huge plastic bins, the contents awaiting the glorious day like cast-offs on the Island of Misfit Toys.

When I got the job as art teacher, I inherited whatever stuff was in the art room. This included an old-fashioned recycling bin full of paper shopping bags. This seemingly endless supply of sturdy brown paper has become the classic backing for the kids' collages. Each bag is carefully cut, saving the bottoms and a couple inches on the sides, in order to use them as baskets to hold the collage bits for each student.

It is a continual process all year, cutting up and sorting the parts. On certain days I go into the school when nobody's there and make piles of all the different collage bits on the tables. I then take each basket around, filling it like a party favor bag. Everyone gets certain special things, but they're all different. Each student will receive their own surprise package of pieces for their collage. It's exciting.

But what's really exciting is the results. I absolutely love to see what the kids will come up with. My favorites are often funny. Sometimes they are profound. The best ones are usually courageous leaps of uninhibitedness, whether representational or completely random. However, some kids are just flabbergasted with the idea of so much freedom and don't know what to do. These are the kids I hope to reach next year.