The Collage Habit

(fill-in-the-blank)-a-day projects are challenging at best… a pain in the arse at worst. I admire those that can do it. Tenacious. On those rare odd days when I’m fully rested, generally caught up on the mundanities of life, feeling hyper creative, and have a full mug of hot coffee, I’ll resolve to maintain a daily creative ritual. Maybe write a poem, shoot a photo, doodle an abstract drawing, journal a single event/experience from the day, or ??? At the moment, it seems easy, doable, and reasonable. It never works. That’s why artist Randel Plowman is to be admired. He creates a 4” x 4” collage ever day and posts it to his aptly named A Collage A Day blog site. Thematically, Plowman has affinity for birds, old clip-art line drawings, and mid-20^th-century popular photos / illustrations. To me, his use of songbirds and flower patterns make his collages unique. I’ve seen enough of the aint-I-cool-and-campy-‘cause-I-use-photos-and-clip-art-of-housewives-and-old-cars-from-ads-in-1962-Good-Housekeeping-and-LOOK-magazines to make me projectile vomit. But, that’s probably just me. What Plowman is doing is incredibly wonderful and worthy of praise, even though the retro panaches bug me. Visit his site and buy a couple of his collages to support him. What he’s doing is incredibly tough to do. Bravo! Mr. Plowman!