From Junk Mail to Magic: How My Mixed Media Collages Began

“Understory” // collage, acrylic paint, graphite

Creativity can be found anywhere.

Once upon a time in 2020, I lost access to my studio due to the pandemic. With little notice before the building closed, I gathered just a few supplies from my space. Once home, I kept thinking about all the things I wished I had grabbed. Eventually, I let go of the need for perfection and relaxed into a creative mindset. I glanced around the house and noticed what I did have: junk mail. Piles of catalogs and magazines.

So I sat down at a card table in my laundry room with a brand-new sketchbook, a few paints, a brush or two, a pencil—and that pile of junk mail. (And crossed my fingers that my cats wouldn’t walk across a pile of paint.)

When you’re in creative flow, time feels suspended.

I began tearing out images from the catalogs, adhering them to pages in the sketchbook, and started painting. It was a fluid, back-and-forth process, blurring the lines between paint and collage, beginnings and endings. It was a process that seemed to come naturally, like I had done this a million times.

As I worked, I remembered being a child, spending hours with a JC Penney catalog, carefully cutting out images, lost in imagination. (For those too young to remember, the JC Penney catalog was enormous.) Time slipped away, as it always does when you’re immersed in creative flow.

Collaging and painting like this felt like a nod to my inner child—my carefree and curious self. Working this way reminded me that creativity truly is everywhere and in everything we do. The act of creating can bring joy in any moment. We are all creators. We don’t need perfect tools or perfect circumstances. We just need to remember our creative selves and begin.

“Lost and Found” // collage, acrylic paint

Portals

These pieces, like much of my work, are portals—portals to creative spaces, to imagination, to other worlds, to new ways of seeing. When I look at them, I get lost in stories of times and places unknown or unseen. I hope that, as the viewer, you can find a pause—a still moment to dream.

“Escape” // collage, acrylic paint

Many of these pieces are available as limited edition prints in three different sizes at Blue Gallery in Kansas City. And, you can see some of them in my portfolio.