TASTE, Fascinate, Passionate

Collage is a medium full of surprises. My five year old grandson loves to come into my studio and make collages, imitating what I do. I keep telling him that he is free to do whatever he wants, that there are no rules in collage. Already, at the age of five, he keeps checking what’s allowed and what’s expected.

This collage, for example, started out with a sheet of black paper. On that I glued a picture torn from a newspaper. Then I did a Gelli plate print on top of the picture. Much to my delight, the cherry tomatoes didn’t pick up the acrylic paint and stayed bright orange.

I then picked up a handful of words from one of my boxes of newspaper headlines, and lay them out on the table. The word TASTE jumped out at me, perhaps because it is the same color as the tomatoes. Then came the word fascinate. Then I realized that passionate had the same ending as fascinate, and when I read them one after another, I found myself pronouncing passionate as passionATE, to rhyme with fascinate. Then I realized that they both contain the word “ate”.

We are usually so immersed in our habitual way of reading, that we are not open to word play.

What does this collage mean to you? Please write and let me know.

avacarmelcollage@gmail.com