Presenting. . . Mirror Worlds🪞
Thank you to everyone who participated in this month’s collage! A reminder: If there are themes you’d be excited to collage, please submit your prompts here.
And now, here are the wonderful Mirror World collages!
Untitled by Ellen Airhart
I made this collage from paper and foil. I got the foil at the Osaka Sewer Museum, where they have engraving stamps that you can use to create the pattern from various manholes throughout history. My favorite is the 1993 Osaka Castle cover.
I made this collage during peak cherry blossom season. As I worked on it, I thought about the city infrastructure that makes it possible for everyone to enjoy the incredible blooms and then move on with their lives as the flowers fall into the mirror world of the sewer system. Our waste reflects back at us.
“Through the looking glass” by Indigo Trigg-Hauger
I found this theme surprisingly difficult, and scrapped 2-3 collages before I did something different. I liked this picture because to me it felt very uncanny, and that’s what mirror worlds conjured up. I copied the drawing upside down to just get lost in the shapes themselves. And also found this text about mirrors in an encyclopedia of antiques!
“Everyone is a mirror” by Gabriela Dorantes
Through connection, we become mirrors for one another, reflecting who we are and discovering new ways to understand ourselves.
For this collage, I also took inspiration from Glennon Doyle’s quote in Untamed: “It is a blessing to know a free woman. Sometimes she will stop by and hold up a mirror for you. She will help you remember who you are”.
“Inside Out” by Melissa Trigg-Collins
When I heard this month’s theme I thought of two sides of a coin or the good and bad that is in all of us that mirror each other.
Two unfinished attempts by Hannah Seo
Like Indigo, I also struggled excessively with this prompt, despite it being my own idea! At first I wanted to do something with cool symmetry or inversion, but struggled to find inspiration in my materials. I ended up with these two (unfinished) attempts.
The first is my try at a split-face style of collage. I didn’t know how else to fill in the empty half. If anyone has ideas, feedback, or tips, I would love to hear them!
The second just came together as I was idly fitting things together. More along the lines of the “inversion” I referenced, I liked the intertwined yin-yang of this couple on a couch. I couldn’t quite make it all work, but I liked the idea of surrounding them with these panels from a French collection of sex-relationship related comics. The panel by the woman has the man thinking, “shit, I fell in love for forever.” The panel by the man shows the woman saying “I will love you all my life.” I considered switching the panels, but I like them better this way.
And that’s it for our April collages!
Next up is our May theme, Gallery, the works for which we will reveal on June 15! You still have two weeks (okay, let’s be real, a whole month) to submit — please remember to share your creations with us via email at a.hannah.seo@gmail.com. Be sure to include a photo of your artwork, a title, and (optional) a short description of the piece and/or your process. If you have a preferred name that you’d like us to attribute your artwork to, please let us know that as well!
We’ll see you on June 1st with a whole new prompt and a showcase of Gallery collages on June 15. Happy collaging!