Word Collages

Freeform and random associations of pieces of text (and imagery) sometimes result in new meanings and insights.

The exploration

Occasionally I see printed text that leads me somewhere, like overlapping pieces of mail that crop out part of the message and allow another one to be revealed. Have you seen the photo of the Starbucks delivery van with the door slid open, so that all you can read of the name is “SUCKS”? It’s beautiful, full of alternative meaning, just by accident. Some of these words or statements actually come fully-formed – all you have to do is clip them out. An example of this is the following headline in a Seattle paper:

The following are some examples of text I’ve put together in a few of my sketchbooks.

There is just something deeply rewarding in looking at two disparate elements brought together to create an irrational image – the humor, something lurking being revealed, the allusion to deeper meaning, exposing hidden truth, prophesy…

William Burroughs did a lot with cutups – randomly cutting through pages of text to reveal what is behind them. He said that it seemed like when you cut into the present, the future leaked out. Some of the randomly constructed sentences he produced actually came true later on. He felt it was never truly random, that at some deeper level we knew what we were doing, like being able to recall what you were doing this moment ten years ago.

Sometimes a word collage leads to a drawing, as Empty New Wife for Bigness did.

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