Project:

Create one collage every day using images, words and detritus culled from the New York Times for that day.

At the beginning of the year, I tasked myself with creating one collage every day for at least a year.

I scheduled an exhibition for December, and began figuring out the details for this process:
What materials would I use? What size would these things be?
etc.

I don't intend to share any of the collages until the exhibition, but, I thought it might be interesting to detail the technical steps I'm using in their creation with the occasional peek at the process I went through to get here.

Dimensions and Support:

I decided to use my old standard 4" by 6" postcard size. Corrugated cardboard, generally cut from a beer box, has always been my choice for postcards, but for this I would want something a little more permanent. The fact that I would be using newspaper as a source for materials prevented the resulting work from being archival, but I still wanted some more formal materials to work with.

I considered wood (thinking, "wood is just a more permanent form of cardboard, right?") and tried a few experiments. I tried it plain and gessoed and treated and all sorts of ways until I came to this conclusion:

Wood is too expensive and difficult-to-use a surface for this kind of endeavor. It was a bad fit.

After some thinking, I came to the conclusion that a nice heavy paper was going to be the best option. I bought a couple of sketchbooks of varying weights and took them home to play with. I finally decided on 140 lb (300 gsm) watercolor paper for its combination of sturdiness and pliability. The paper would absorb the glue and not be distorted by the moisture. This is also the heaviest weight watercolor paper that is readily available at your local art supply store.

During the search for paper, I realized I may want some room to color outside the lines. This was gong to be, at the very least, a yearlong project, and the 4 by 6 inches of space I had defined may prove to be a bit claustrophobic by the middle of June. So, I decided to work on a bigger piece of paper (an extra inch or so around the edge would probably do) while still focusing on the 4" by 6" center of the composition. This would give me the ability to zero in on the area and size I was comfortable with while having the option of breaking those boundaries if the need should arise. (Claustrophobia averted.)

My final decision was to go with a 9" by 12" Canson Watercolor pad, the pages of which could be cut into two perfectly sized supports to work on. There were 12 sheets in the pad, which would give me 24 collages. At roughly 9 bucks, that worked out to just about 40 cents apiece. This was the perfect solution; a good, stable, yet flexible support at an economical price.

Now, what kind of glue was I going to use?

Adhesive:

I've always used a simple little Elmer's Glue Pen (as well as Scotch Tape) for my postcard collages. It's portable and holds up pretty well bouncing around inside my bag all day.

I wasn't going to be toting these around (they would be made in the studio) so portability became a non-issue. What was more important was the finished product. I spent an evening with a few different glues attaching scraps of newspaper to swatches of watercolor paper looking for just the right combination. To get a handle on whether there was a need to stretch the watercolor paper, I also varied the amount of water involved.

The end result was this:

• For best results, the paper should be stretched,
• Mod Podge Matte should be used as the primary adhesive, and
• sealing the collage after the fact with another layer of glue has a tendency to create unpredictable (and undesirable) effects with the delicate newsprint.

Along the way, I realized I wanted the glue to be invisible after drying. I wanted it to do it's job and not get in the way. That was the primary reason for choosing the Mod Podge.

Sadly, my trusty ol' Elmer's Glue Pen didn't make the cut because of the glossy shine he left behind.

We all have things we're good at.
He's still my go-to guy for smackin' shit together at the coffeeshop.

Behind every face,
another
face crying into another
face

of a clock

Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
Prick
Cock

I missed you.

Part 2 (by Garland Sutton):

Between both your ears
A mother's
voice crying about a mother's
fate,

like a rock.

This
Rock in
Sick
Socks.
Tickety
Tock.

I'm issues.

so, i start a letter to my father that says,
"Thursday afternoon. i remember the letter
you sent me from jail,"
and i say that i don't remember
when it was and,
"i don't remember where you were."
and i wondered if it had also been written
on a Thursday.

then,
"when i left home i was tired, i was angry,
i was disheveled, but i was free.
i was finally free."

and,
" the same noise fills this room
that fills school cafeteria...
the noise that floats around in the worst
neighborhoods
and in kitchen dishrooms."

i tell him about the windows,
how they are 3 inches wide.
"skinny, just to let the light in," i say,
"and that's it."

"humanitarian i suppose."
and i say out loud, "white walls, white ceilings,
cement floors and white noise." and i
write that down too.

the air in here does not move and
there is no white noise for the hour in
the mornings when the
gentlemen are showering, making their beds,
eating their "morning meal".

then they go back to sleep, on top of the
beds they've made.
those are the rules, no one under the covers
when the lights are not off.

and i tell my father
"no more of my life will be
used up in places like this, father, no
more time will be wasted.

"everyone has a Bible, little tiny bars of soap,
slipper shoes that are just too big...

"and there's the debate in your head over
whether its cleaner to shower or to
not go near that dirty shower...

"there's the heart rate and the cold feet
and the tap-tap-tapping on
the rail rail rail.

"there are head counts and "lock-it-down!s"
and cambro plates of food.

"there's tea in small brown coffee mugs and
water
when it empties."

i tell my father, "i'm on the second floor,
the Balcony, the loft, with 18 others,
tired of lying down,
tired of sitting up,
twisted in my jumpsuit
and my face unshaven."
"the Mezzanine," i say.

i've retraced the First Crusade with
Tim Severin of National Geographic.
i've read two books and've slept through
the evening.

and i stop my letter,

i don't know how to tell him
that these things remind me so strongly
of growing up, so i turn
my attention to the air that doesn't move
again,
and fill my mind with inclination.

the paintbrush,
the canvas,
i tear my letter in half and say to my
father
out loud that i am tired of watching men
cheat at games of solitaire.

written in 2002.
(all rights reserved.)

a lot of my time is spent waiting for trains and riding on trains and deciphering schedules. right now i'm looking out across the highways at 30th street station. the people-watching is always good and the overheard conversations pass for something to do.

it's hot here on the platform and everyone sighs heavily, waiting for a way home, listening to the details of other people's lives.

(Photo added Sept. 3, 2009.)

I don't know what to say about the burning of the Georgia Theatre.

(The place had gotten a paint job at some point. When I came back into town, it was one of the many changes I noticed. It used to be this perfectly-dull non-color color. It was just a place for the pigeons to shit on. I remembered their silhouettes at the top of the wall, like photos of birds on wires.)

When I first heard, I couldn't fathom missing the place.

(I drove Michele Head's Mustang into the wall of the parking deck and got relieved of my driving duties. It was really just a bump and a scratch. We were on our way to see Pylon and I couldn't tell you how young I was. That was the first show I ever went to, anywhere. All ages. Opening band had something to do with Mark Bell. For a long time I kept one of the flyers in my stuff. Reverend Martin's Alliance?)

You know, you don't think of yourself as an advocate for the Georgia Theatre, but you've been there.

(My sister had come to town and we were going to see the Cowboy Junkies. We didn't have tickets. It was magical the way we came around the corner and someone gave them to us. Man, I used to love the Cowboy Junkies.)

You walk by it every day, knowing what to expect.

(RE: "Happiness": We left the theater completely unable to talk. Some movies leave a mark. I don't think I said a word for an entire day.)

I started thinking about the times I had been there. I started to realize they were sprinkled throughout my life. Moments in my multiple histories.

(In the years that I was away from Athens, the parking lot beside the theatre would enter my thoughts from time to time. It wasn't because of anything special that had happened there. It was for the countless times that lot was crossed in the middle of one of my nights out, plodding on to the next bar. Going down to the Engine Room. I could've made that trajectory in my sleep. Come to think of it, I probably did sleep that walk a time or two.)

Places become connected to us.
Reference points for the things we want to hold on to.

(Mid-afternoon, walking home, it started to rain just as I was coming up on the theatre. I ducked under the marquee and decided to wait it out. An old man asked me for a cigarette and we stood there talking about nothing for a while. The rain lasted long enough for us to sit down with our backs against the wall. I can't remember his name. I can't remember anything we talked about. I felt right though. A smoke and a cigarette and a conversation in the middle of a rain in Georgia. I'm pretty sure that's why I never carry an umbrella.)

What do you remember?