This is What Runs in Our Family
Warning: One house isn’t big enough for 3 collage artists.
All forms of record keeping interest me. Since receiving my first “Dear Diary” when I was 10 years old, I’ve gone on to keep photo albums, dream journals, baby books, and scrapbooks.
I’ve always enjoyed making collages, but when my Asheville potter son, Josh, began doing collage journals about 6 years ago, he inspired me to a new level. 
Josh has been a mad artist since the time he could hold a crayon. His collage journals have gotten so extensive that he has had to hire someone to design books that expand with use, in order to hold all the pages of his prolific and multi-media art, which on any given day might include a fortune cookie fortune, paint, photographs of photographs, receipts, or pieces of mail.
I made my first collage journal when I turned 50 as a way to consolidate a visual review of my first 50 years. Not long after that my husband made one of his own as part of an assignment for his masters in counseling program.
Now were all hooked, but Josh more than the rest of us. In his studio warehouse apartment, he has 4 desks to accommodate his art. When visiting us in Virginia, he’s been known to pick us his journal and start collaging whenever the muse strikes him. When he leaves, there are always traces of his art making left behind. Besides various scraps and interesting scraps of paper, fabric or cardboard on our floors, there are drops of frozen clear epoxy on our cellar floor, and a yellow outline on our back doorstep of something Josh spray painted last year.
Photos: Me, Joe, and Josh. Notice that I am the messiest of the group. I hope to post a few pages of each of our journals in a future entry.
April 23rd, 2006 12:58 pm
Sounds really interesting. My Mum is a big fan of scrapbooking and I’m often passing things to her to create a book from!
Here from Michele’s today…hello!
April 23rd, 2006 1:11 pm
So did Dear Abby tell you how to get rid of freckels? I have them too, but I love them now. My grandpa told me they were “angel kisses”.
Hello from Michele’s!
April 23rd, 2006 1:14 pm
Hi Aimee, I think the answer has something to do with a “lemon.” I didn’t like them when I was young and they were first spotting my face, but since then they have blended in.
April 23rd, 2006 2:45 pm
Messiness is a sign of a creative mind. At least that’s what I tell myself as I survey the disaster that is my desk.
I can’t work effectively in an antiseptic environment. I had to smile when I saw your words and images: I so relate.
April 23rd, 2006 2:57 pm
Would love to see some of the collage work. Looks like you’re all very intensely passionate about it.
April 23rd, 2006 3:38 pm
This looks fun and messy. Maybe a project I could enjoy with my daughters.
April 23rd, 2006 5:34 pm
Happiness is being surrounded by creative chaos.
April 23rd, 2006 11:03 pm
Michele sent me to see you, Colleen.
I haven’t done anything like that since I was in middle school, Colleen. I don’t recall finding it particularly enjoyable back then but I didn’t have the breath of life experience to call upon either. I have no idea if I’d get out of it now what you and your family does.
April 23rd, 2006 11:27 pm
Here via Michele today – I love collage journals; haven’t done one in a looong while!
April 24th, 2006 2:10 am
Colleen, I would love to see some of the pages in your books! I have always had the idea to do this, but somehow I only collect the stuff and it stays in boxes!
April 24th, 2006 7:20 am
Colleen, I think sounds like a wonderful idea and am anxious to see what you are creating. I feel that my life is a constantly changine collage of ideas and words and random happenings. Perhaps I would remember them better and cherish them more if I made them a bit more permanent??? I would also like to do a collage quilt about Me sometime. Be blessed today!
April 24th, 2006 1:06 pm
Yes, please. I did scrapbooks for my daughter’s 16th birthday and my parents 50th wedding anniversary with pictures gathered in our collection and those sent by others. Friends and family sent letters of greeting and included memories. We had letters from all over the country and I ended up having to do two big books for each event. Always looking for new ideas.
April 24th, 2006 6:25 pm
My living room floor looks like that when I do my scrap booking! It is so much fun!
April 24th, 2006 11:11 pm
Years ago I went to see an exhibit of a collage artist named Jess at Boston’s MFA. It floored me. In 1993 the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy published “Jess: A Grand Collage, 1951-1993” — which can’t do justice to the actual pieces but gives a good indication of his work (he died in 2004, age 80).
April 24th, 2006 11:43 pm
Down with the paperless studio! It’s great to see a blogger cutting and pasting with cutters and paste~,:^)
May 8th, 2006 9:29 pm
Always a delight to drop in on your life Colleen!
November 23rd, 2010 7:43 pm
Hi Colleen, I am commenting on this 4-1/2 year old blog post! I have recently become interested in making a collage journal and remembered yours – I don’t really know where to start, what kind of book to use, how do you get it to look like that? There is a lot of info online and of course everyone’s will be different reflecting the personality etc of the maker, but if you have any tips on actual construction etc, would be appreciated, thanks! Love yours!
November 23rd, 2010 10:31 pm
It’s all done by instinct, like decorating a room in half an hour. Click on “Collage” on the category archive to the right.
August 6th, 2013 11:22 am
[…] Notes: Collaging runs in our family here. View pages from my collage journal here. That’s Josh’s brother Dylan in the forefront […]