For the last week or so, I’ve been experimenting with paper - making mini squash books and accordion books and flowers that, when stacked and glued, open into enormous blossoms. That inspired me to order some origami paper, which led me down a rabbit hole learning how to make butterflies and birds.

It’s been a fun week of play.

I haven’t abandoned the mini collages. Quite the opposite. I’ve taken what I’ve learned cutting and pasting and am using it as fuel to make better birds (you may remember my bird phase; and another bird; and another bird) as well as bring to life some other ideas that have been simmering in my mind’s eye for a while.

Case in point: today’s collage.

For a while I’ve had a vision for a monochromatic piece using old crosswords. Other than that? No clue where it would go; I was just curious to see what I could do with a growing stack of newspaper in the recycling bin.

I sat down on a rainy Saturday afternoon to experiment with the flimsy paper to see how it might fold and how it might hold up when glued. The monochrome of the black and white, the squares, the smudged pencil - it was definitely what I was looking to play with and offered up a different result than copy or origami paper.

So I kept playing, the pile of shapes growing as I practiced.

And then, at one point, the flowers and the butterflies I’d made this week were on the table amidst scraps of crossword puzzles, and in a flash it all clicked, and the idea I had in my head began to reveal itself on the table in front of me.

I put everything aside to see if I could craft this vision into being.

In my mind’s eye, everything was supposed to sit flat on the canvas, and the butterfly was supposed to be black. It was supposed to be another mini collage, like the other 82 collages I’ve done since January.

Except, clearly none of that was how this particular collage was supposed to go.

Thank god I let the muses guide my hands, and I gave myself the entire afternoon to make mistakes and try again and again until all of the sudden...

There it was.

Yes, the red butterfly was exactly the right choice; had I not made a dozen different butterflies for no other reason than the process soothed my brain, I might not have made that discovery.

Had I not just watched a you tube video this week on how to make pop-up greeting cards it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to give the butterfly lift instead of gluing it flat to the paper.

Is it perfect? It is not. But that’s what makes it so beautiful.

The best part is that, now that I understand the mechanics of what I want to achieve, I can play with it even more. I’d like to try this on an actual canvas. That will require different glue and papers that will hold up better than old newsprint. That will require learning some new skills and experimenting with different products and processes.

That will require me to follow my curiosity, and what a fantastical requirement that is, to find something that captures my attention and then give myself time to experiment, to learn, to grow, to soak up knowledge without an agenda and store it away for a rainy day.

My entire life I’ve never able to reproduce with the depth and breadth and clarity what I see in my mind’s eye. Words on a page, promotional pieces for my old real job, art, gardening, food. I always wrote it off to being incapable of making actual art, or dismissing ideas because I can’t make them appear in real life.

This is proof that incapable is not the same as not yet equipped.

The process takes time. Not because the goal is unattainable but because to truly create I need to fully own my unique process. To try, to fail, to find the tools that work best for my hands, my brain, my process.

Is this what it feels like to be an artist? To see something in your head and slowly develop the skills to make it exist in reality, when the time is right and when you are who you need to be?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

That journey happens by following our curiosity, by continually learning, by trying and failing again and again.

It’s true in life and in art.

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Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages with a focus on the process rather than the product. You can see most of the collages on my Facebook or Instagram pages, or in the Notes section of this website.

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I love quotes. I love unusual words. I have a whole file with scraps of paper and notes and lists of things that strike my fancy that I want to remember.

Ubuntu: being kind to others on account of one’s humanity.
Often translated “I am because we are.” Zulu/xhosa

These two pieces of wee tiny art shown here were made last year as an experiment for the Mini Mystery Art Machine, a small vending machine containing capsules filled with tiny pieces of art that travels around the city. Think gumball machine for your emotions and general creative delight.

I’d participated before and last year wanted to experiment with art and the words accumulating on my desk.

The paper was from a leaf-printed watercolor painting, and the words from the quotes and words file. At the time, I thought they came out terrible, so instead of making more I threw them into a box and created black out poems for the machine instead.

“What we speak becomes the house we live in.” Hafiz

Today, I came across these two tiny pieces while going through art supplies, and wondered why I ever thought they were terrible. The colors popped today; the words struck a chord. That they are less than perfect, or unfinished, is what makes them so perfect.

These tiny collage experiments, buried in a container of scrap paper, were found and filled a void that needed filling at the moment. They also planted the seeds for the collage journey I’ve been on since January.

Isn’t that really all we can ask from art?

Mampemurruwurlmurruwurl: she’s making (the girl’s) hair beautiful.
From the Australian Aboriginal language Murrinhpatha

Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages (today from the archives) with a focus on the process rather than the product.

(PS: if you received this post in an email, and noticed a typo in the sub head… just think of it as word art.)

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Today's collage is inspired by the launch of Artemis II, heading farther into space than we've traveled before, laying the groundwork for further moon landing and space travel, including to Mars.

I'm also thinking today about Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents", the first two books in her unfinished Earthseed series. Set amidst a deeply dehumanized society led, in the second book, by a religiously zealous president who's campaign slogan is "Make America Great Again", the books - written decades ago - set the stage for a group of humans preparing to build a community in the stars. Deeply moving books, with harrowing plots, that force the reader to explore hard truths.

Earthseed was never realized in Butler's series, but today, in the real world, perhaps it has lift-off.

And so it's no wonder that tonight's collage is a mix of starkness and possibility, light and shadow. We fly through the heavens on the knowledge we hold, understanding that is but a speck in what the Universe has to share.

Godspeed, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. Humanity awaits your return.

Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages with a focus on the process rather than the product.

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mini collage experiments #1 & #2
created 3/5 & 3/6 2026

I spent a good amount of time the last few days experimenting with mini-mini collages for the April Mini Mystery Machine. This is a vending machine that travels around the city, dispensing tiny art for $1. I’ve participated in the past, and my art will be in the machine at its April location.

I've contributed to the Mini Mystery Art Machine three times already. The first time I wanted to do small collages. I’d taken a class a few years ago, and faffed around a bit with some supplies I bought at the art store, but doing collages for this project felt out of my league. So I painted what I called “quirky blob birds”, something I’d been playing with at the time. I was having a ball creating these characters (they had such personality!), but as I delivered them on the due date I was worried they were too silly, and that someone would put four quarters into the machine, get one of these birds, and be disappointed that it wasn’t real art.

I stopped making them soon after.

I had lost the fun of creating because I was worried about the product.

Keep in mind that the entire time the machine’s founder kept reminding me that art is in the eye of the beholder, and these were just a dollar, and it was all for fun, and the birds were adorable. The pressure was all my own.

Months later I contributed black out poetry for the machine, and then a few months ago I wrote some haikus. Both are things I love doing and are things I’m confident doing - I am a writer, after all - but the experience felt less like fun and more like work.

When the opportunity came up to do the machine again, I immediately knew I had to play with the collages.

I’ve been doing small 4” x 4” mini collages almost daily since January, with no goal other than to do it if I felt like it and not do it if I didn’t feel like it. I did collage #59 yesterday. (You can read more about the project here.)

To make these mini-mini collages, I started with a square a little smaller than 2" x 2", and eventually went to 1.5" x 1.5" because I wanted to make sure they’d be able to fit into the capsules without bending or folding. That’s a small canvas to create on, folks.

But these aren't necessarily collages I would create on a bigger scale anyway, even for my daily project. The postage stamps, along with all of the other shapes, are made using paper punches. My hands can’t possibly cut shapes that intricate with scissors, and my eyes and neck wouldn't bear the strain of such intensely exacting work.

The papers for the 1.5” mini-mini collages all come from scraps of collage papers or artwork I painted and used for other projects. In other words, they’re original artwork, made from original artwork.

The 2” collages are made with the same scraps but I also played a lot with brightly colored craft papers. I absolutely love the contrast and boldness.

If fact, I love everything about every one of these, even the ones that I look at and want to tweak a bit. I enjoyed making them, I enjoy looking at them, and I see in them the energy I felt while I cut and glued and played.

The process of creating is a journey. We might know where we want to go, but not feel like we have the tools or navigation skills to get there. We might feel unworthy of even considering the adventure. I’m not a trained artist. I know nothing about design or artists or art history. (Several people have mentioned that some of the collages remind them of Matisse; I had to have a friend explain that analogy to me.) I had what I thought were the “right” supplies but I felt like a fraud for using them. The use of paper punches and Elmer's glue felt like cheating somehow; real artists use real supplies from real art stores, right?

I’ve stopped caring. I’ve stopped asking myself what a real artist is, or even asking “is this art?” Instead, I focus on whatever muse shows up to play, with whatever materials are on the table.

The glue, the paper, the punches - those have been sitting in a box in my house for two years. I’ve had everything I need - except the mindset that I had nothing to lose by playing. That insight isn’t the new path; it’s just the light illuminating the path so I can take the steps forward.

Cut, rip, glue.
Repeat.
Move on with your day.

That’s the secret to creative play.

You can see all of the collages on my Facebook or Instagram pages, or in the Notes section of this website.

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This quote is from the Divine Purpose newsletter that was waiting in my inbox this morning:

Some chapters of life are louder than others.

There are seasons of celebration, quick wins, visible milestones. And then there are seasons like this — steady, focused, quietly committed. The kind where progress doesn’t always announce itself, but you know you’re giving your energy to something that matters.

You’ve been showing up. Staying consistent. Doing the work even when no one is watching.

It may not feel dramatic. It may not feel glamorous. In fact, it might feel repetitive, even slow at times. But there is something powerful about choosing dedication over distraction.

Hard work has a way of shaping you long before it rewards you.

It sharpens your instincts. Strengthens your endurance. Builds a level of confidence that isn’t loud — just unshakable.

You might not see the full return yet. But foundations take time. Roots grow down before anything rises up.

And what you’re building right now? It’s growing.

This hit home as I've been thinking a lot about this mini collage project I've been working on. I finished collage no. 43 last night. I can't believe I've done 43 collages.

Forty three separate pieces of artwork since January 2nd.

But there they are, all in a sketchbook and in single squares resting safely in a box.

Once in a while, I ask myself why I'm doing it, and what I'm going to do with the collages when I eventually get tired of the project. I think about the art I've made over the years, stored away in my studio, or the stories and poems I've written for decades, scattered about in notebooks and journals and folders and piles of notes scrawled on scrap paper.

Someday I'll be gone and whoever is charged with cleaning out my belongings will look at all of the scribblings and revisions and experiments with paint and paper, with words and images, most of it meaningless to anyone but me, and toss it all in a dumpster.

So what's the point?

The point is that as I've journeyed on this creative path over the decades, I've become a different person. A little calmer, a little more attuned to the details in the world around me - color, texture, light, and how they make me feel. I see connections I might otherwise ignore. I think about other people while I'm playing and imagine what the world looks like through their eyes.

I’m not who I was 30 years ago, or 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, or last year.

I’m not who I was 43 collages ago.

Nothing about these collages is dramatic or glamorous. Yes, they are repetitive (you can see that I've gone through a water and lighthouse phase, and I'm beak deep in a bird phase). The daily act of setting aside time to create wasn't a conscious decision to commit to something long term. I was just committing to one day at a time, and honoring that time for what is was, knowing that I could stop at any time.

There is something sacred in that kind of daily practice.

And yes, it changed me before it rewarded me.

The daily creative time has recently inspired me to breathe new life into some old projects. That’s led to a collaboration with another artist as we plan interactive experiences to connect humans through art.

On January 2nd, I sowed a seed I didn’t know was in my hand, into soil I didn’t know existed. That seed germinated into a tiny stalk sprouting green leaves of creativity.

Now a garden is flourishing.

As the Divine Purpose newsletter says, "Roots grow down before anything rises up."

I’d add this: when you take a step in the direction of the Universe, the Universe runs to meet you.

Sow that creative seed. Let new growth swell and break through the pod as tendrils reach out into the dark earth. This will be invisible to you, but trust that you’ll soon see a wee little shoot poking out to taste the sunlight.

The Universe is just waiting for you to plant that first seed, so it can germinate that first stalk, which will sprout that first tender leaf, and in doing so set an entire act of creation in motion.

You don’t have to plan ahead or commit to a long term thing. You’re not responsible for all the art in the world. Just be present in one moment, with a small creative act, and see what grows from there.

Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages with a focus on the process rather than the product. You can see all of the collages on my Facebook or Instagram pages, or in the Notes section of this website.

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mini collage no. 36
2/10/2026
Through The Garden’s Secret Door

Earlier in the week, I spent some time making some new collage papers. Nothing intentional. I just grabbed some card stock, copy paper, and coffee filters; some acrylic paints and inks; and a gelli plate. I made myself a cup of tea, put something on the TV, and spent an hour putting paint onto papers.

There was no goal, other than to give myself some new inspiration for the collages. I wasn’t really even paying attention to what I was putting on the page. I rolled paint, pulled it from the gelli plate, dabbed it on the page with an old piece of sponge I found in the art box. As long as there was color and some sort of pattern on the paper, it would serve the purpose.

For the collage on February 10th, I grabbed a piece of paper that had a lot of earthy colors and texture, not colors I’d been using but they appealed to me in the moment. The textures brought to mind a forest in the fall. It spoke to me.

I randomly cut a square to fit the small page in my sketchbook, glued it down, and immediately saw it had a natural place where a door should be. I wasn’t really sure what else I wanted to do - the square almost could have stood alone - it needed a door, and so I started there.

Confession: I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what that door was supposed to look like. I cut paper, I cut doors that opened, I was accumulating a pile of small scraps that just weren’t working. And then at some point I rounded the edges from square, and, viola! It worked. And that was all I added to the collage.

In other words, the collage was waiting for me to notice and then mark the door.

Even as I look at this, days later, it feels unfinished, like we should be able to see what’s on the other side of the doorway. And believe me, I tried to put something there. But nothing felt right.

Maybe that’s the way portals are supposed to feel when they’re hiding in plain sight. If you could see what was waiting on the other side, you might not pass through, because it might look scary and you might not venture near. But it also might lead you to the path of your wildest dreams. You won’t know until you step over the threshold. And you won’t even know the door is there unless you’re willing to adjust your eyes to see what’s right in front of you.

As in life, the doorway in this collage will reveal what’s on the other side
when I’m ready to see it, and when I’m ready to step through.

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Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages with a focus on the process rather than the product. You can see all of the collages on my Facebook or Instagram pages, or in the Notes section of this website.

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I did tonight’s collage while I watched the Super Bowl, and did most of it during the halftime show. I don’t know a thing about Bad Bunny, but I do know a whole lot of people got their knickers in a twist to boycott something they didn’t understand.

So I was looking forward to the performance.

I may not have understood all the words Bad Bunny sang, but I understood the stories. I saw a celebration of human spirit and family and community and love and struggle and perseverance and pride and culture.

Where words fail, music and dance and art speak volumes.

Will I find out later that there were things I didn’t understand, that there were deeper meanings to the songs that went over my head? Of course. And when that happens, I’ll follow my curiosity and learn more.

That’s what art does. It makes you think. It pushes you outside of your comfort zone. It crosses cultural boundaries and unites us when words can’t. It gives us opportunities to change our minds.

I enjoyed every minute of that show.

As for tonight’s collage?

I made a bunch of coffee filter birds today, and wanted to experiment a bit with some of the papers I made yesterday.

I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing while I was cutting and gluing. I was immersed in the music and performance on TV and sort of let it all wash over me while I worked.

Here’s the thing about tonight’s collage: the background is made from a color copy of a sheet I painted yesterday. This was the first time I used a copy of a page so I could save the original. I don’t know why I did that. I’ve used a lot of great sheets of paper that I loved and really didn’t want to cut. But because the goal of the collages is the process over the product, so far I’ve just gone ahead and ripped with abandon.

For some reason, I didn’t do that tonight.

I guess, in a way, I held back out of fear of destroying something I thought I wanted to hang on to. Except I don’t even really like the paper that much. I just overthought the whole thing and let myself play it safe rather than embrace the process.

This collage isn’t better or worse because I used a copy. It’s just different. The colors are the same but it is missing the texture and the depth of the painted papers. Part of me also thinks it’s too busy; part of me thinks something is missing, like it’s not quite finished.

I can try to recreate this with the original painted sheet, but I’ve lost the organic nature of the process. I played it safe, and for no good reason.

It’s not wrong. But it is an opportunity to learn something about myself.

I think this collage needs to sit for a few days so I can hear what it wants to tell me. It has more to say.

Kind of like Bad Bunny’s show.

Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages with a focus on the process rather than the product.

mini collage no. 33
2/6/2026

The best I can say about today's collage is that it reflects how cold I am. And we're only heading into colder weather: below zero tomorrow with "real feel" of as low as -20 degrees.

I suppose I could caption this "global warming".

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Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages with a focus on the process rather than the product.

All of the collages are available to see on my Facebook or Instagram, and are slowly being moved to the Mini Collages section of this website.

Mini Collage #30
2/3/2026
At The End Of The Day, Peace

Today, I made my 30th collage of this project that I started on January 2nd.

If you had told me a month ago that I should do a mini collage every day, until I had 30 collages, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I would have worried about getting it right, or missing a day, dreading the task. And if I did manage to even start it, and make it to 30 pieces, I would have been gasping over a finish line, relieved that I endured, and that now it was over.

Instead, this is now part of my evening routine, when the day is done and my brain is empty and my body is tired. It’s easier to not think when I’m at this point. The only expectation is to put something on the page. That’s doable.

I’ve been thinking lately about peace - the Singing Resistance in MN and now across the country, the Monks walking for peace, the beauty and power that is revealed when humans stand together in song and calm, with love and hope.

It’s overwhelming to think about what we can do to change the world. What an enormous task! If that was the actual goal we’d dread the work and barely endure to the finish line. In fact, most of us would never get out of the starting gate.

Instead, if we decide to love each other a little bit every day, it will become a habit, and when we look back we’ll be surprised to see how far we’ve come. Together.

It may not be perfect, but it will be what it’s supposed to be.
That’s all we can ask of each other.

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Ending the day with a little paper and glue therapy, mini collages with a focus on the process rather than the product.

All of the collages are available to see on my Facebook or Instagram, and are slowly being moved to the Mini Collages section of this website.

I have been at sixes and sevens all day long, like I’ve been on the verge of a panic attack since the afternoon. Edgy, irritated, dealing with problems not of my making. I’m grateful for a lot of things today but I confess that by the time evening came, I was close to snapping.

In fact, I did lose my patience with Beau at one point, while we were out in the arctic cold for a potty break. He zeroed in on a bunny with laser focus, and while I managed to hold the leash to keep him from taking off I also had on boots definitely not made for walking on icy sidewalks, and let’s just say the entire situation quickly became unsafe for all three of us - dog, human, bunny.

Words were said. We’ll leave it at that.

When I sat down to process the day with paper and glue, I was still off kilter. I felt antsy and angry at myself. My body is so tired. My bones and muscles hurt from being pulled by a strong, determined dog. The tips of my fingers are split and sore from the cold. I’m frustrated at the problems I have to deal with tomorrow because someone else made bad choices yesterday.

The first things I glued on this collage were completely askew; there was a dissonance about the lines and the edges and I liked it. But I couldn’t leave it that way. It felt like a song that ends without the last note and leaves you hanging. So I spent time gluing tiny bits of paper here and there to even out the edges, but also kept wee details to deliberately keep some of the off-kilter element that had initially soothed my nerves.

Balance in the imbalance.

Some days things just can’t be evened out, so we patch up what we can, accept that it’s not perfect, and hope tomorrow brings a little more balance.

Or, rather, we find ways to bring the balance to ourselves.

I’m choosing these days to do that with glue and paper - and tonight with hot tea, and a heating pad, and a dog who for reasons I don’t understand has forgiven my earlier transgressions. We’ll sleep this one off and wake tomorrow and try again.

May you find a way to leave the day on a page - with words or paint or glue and paper. And may that releasing allow your spirit to find its center.

Happy creating,
Joanne

You can see all of the mini collages, on Instagram or Facebook.

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It works like this: towards the end of the day, I reach into the collage paper bin and grab some bits and bobs of paper, scraps, whatever appeals to me in the moment. If there’s something from the day that’s resonated with me, I grab that as well - could be junk mail, magazines, recycled packaging. The collage papers are simply scraps of paper I’ve wiped brushes on, or the trimmings from gift boxes, or even the inserts from medications, grocery lists, to-do lists. There is nothing formal about this, nothing store-bought, no need to spend money on supplies.

I assemble what I need - paper/bits, scissors, pencil, ruler, glue - and in my small sketchbook I pencil in a border of about 4x4. Nothing about this is perfect or exact, but it’s what I need in that moment, even if I didn’t know I needed it.

Sort of like each day.

Sometimes there’s a clear theme; sometimes I sit down and when I get ready to rip or cut, the pieces in my hand don’t feel “good” so I go back to the bin and usually right on top is something that’s calling me now that I ignored earlier. Sometimes I start with an idea and toss the entire thing out, and am surprised by what I create. I try to only use one or two pieces of collage paper or pages so I don’t overwhelm myself. I don’t care if the colors coordinate on the color wheel, or if things are cut evenly.

The goal is just to process the day with some paper and glue therapy with a “feel, cut, paste, move on” type of exercise.

The surprising thing is that when I go back through the sketchbook I’ve discovered themes - water and shores, for example. I’ve found that less can be more, and more can be sparse, and things I can’t find words for scream from the paper.

Not long ago I wrote about a conversation I had with my therapist about always being a facilitator and not a participant, and how I was no longer actually doing a lot of the work I was incorporating in workshops. No wonder things felt dry and empty. This regular practice has been refilling my cup.

I’ve been working on some creative experiences I’m looking forward to sharing with you in 2026, and at some point soon I’ll invite you to rejoin me for some workshops and play times. For now, let me encourage you to find your own way to process the day with art - there are no rules, no expectations, no right or wrong. If you don’t have a sketchbook, cut up cereal boxes and collage on those. Use Elmer’s glue or a kids glue stick. If you can’t find the scissors, just rip everything.

Share it, don’t share it, it doesn’t matter what you do with it.
But it does matter, to you.
Only to you.

Happy creating,
Joanne
connect. inspire. change the world.

You can see all of the collages posted here in notes, or on my Instagram.

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