Studio Series: Before & During Collages

In order to dive back into my full studio practice after a summer of distraction, I needed to "prime the pump." This meant that I cleaned, organized, purged, and gave my attention to unfinished projects. In my flat file I found a pile of early collages from 2005 to 2008. Most were rough. Okay, they were bad. Bad collages offer something to respond to, so I did. The top collage was from January 25, 2007 and I cleaned it up in November 2011. What's great about working on old collages is that there is no blank slate to paralyze me. Since the work is already bad, there's no risk. No risk = no fear (a.k.a. resistance). If it doesn't still doesn't work after some tweaking, I can cut it up and rearrange it, or I can toss it into the recycle bin. Attacking old work is the best way to ease or dive back into a studio practice. How do you deal with resistance?