Over the weekend I had the opportunity to collage prompted by a short story.

Local author Alma Alexander is working on a collection of short stories titled "Untranslatable." Each story has a word that inspired it. She let me work from one of the stories and swedish word "Manzata"

These are the two collage pieces that found me.

They were not exactly right - meaning, they did not literally depict the tale. I sure had fun trying though!! As process goes, I worked with what I had. I read her story - I jotted down words from her story that spoke to me, I then took a stack of national geographic magazines and tore what I could find. In my minds eye certain imagery would illustrate her story, and some of that definitely landed in these two collages. The challenge was to take what images I did find and have them have some artistic aesthetic.  Very much like a puzzle of sorts.

It was a delight to meet Alma, and super fun to playfully attempt to illustrate something in collage. As time goes on I bet the right collection of imagery will find me and I can be more literal to the story!

Alma's story by the way was really wonderful! You can enjoy her writing for yourself here