There are SO many opportunities for community-based collage. Last month, I was taking advantage of one of them — a monthly online call with Northwest Collage Society members, and we were listing some of our options:
- Februllage — about to start, at the time of the call
- Paris Collage Collective weekly challenges
- Arizona Collage Collective calls
- Vancouver Collage Collective‘s daily calendar
- Special Agent Collage Collective‘s missions
- The 100 Day project, starting soon
Never mind the in-person meetups and calls for the very group I was immersed in, or similar groups in Portland, or Minneapolis or New Orleans… Or anything else I’ve forgotten. If you’re afraid of missing out (I am!) it’s tough. But if you’re looking for community? It’s wonderful! Yet each of these endeavours can be a LOT. Daily efforts are difficult to keep up, and random prompts hard to follow. I had quite the challenge, a while back, in sticking with a year-long challenge, Collage365. At the same time, it spurred a much more regular art practice for me, and connected me with like-minded folks.
So, it’s great to be clear on the benefits of heading into an undertaking like this. The appeal of such structure also bears the weight of trying to quantify your output: 30 days, 100 days, 365 days? As Rebecca Solnit writes, quantification can’t be the only goal. The process, the connection, the gift of yourself that you put into anything you create: that doesn’t belong on a spreadsheet.
Personally, I am juggling too many projects and ideas to take on something like a daily commitment right now. My preferences are the Paris Collage Collective challenge, which I remind myself to check each Monday, and the Special Agent Collage Collective‘s missions. But recently, I did join the Vancouver Collage Collective, and ponied up the funds for one of their lovely daily calendars. There are such great images here! I just can’t keep up with the daily part. So, when I’ve got the urge, I flip through the images up through today’s date, snag one that looks good, and try it out in my new sketchbook, saving the date it was from for reference.
What works for you? Does any group here look appealing? Is there something in your area that would suit, maybe for in-person meetups? The real benefit, never mind the quantity or days in a row, is in getting some visual marks on a page somehow, to reset and engage your non-verbal processing. That’s always worth it.