As a prolific maker of collage art who lives in a very tiny apartment with her beloved cat. I struggle with the feeling that between the art I make and the paper that I store as resources might just bury me alive. The feeling is real. Annually I purge, rearrange piles, but as of 2025 I really have very little space left. and, sometimes the overwhelm of it all keeps me from making/creating because I think to myself. Where will I put it all?

Along the way a few solutions have found me.

1. Make small. Creating mini stitched collage work and gifting them to a local free little art gallery makes me happy. The small art treasures take up very little storage space. Mini's became what they are 3 years ago now inspired by LFAG. Not all works donated that go to the gallery are stitched mini's. Photography, practice collages and other work I feel ready to let go of also gets donated. 200 items given so far. Mini's make use of a lot of scraps. 

2. I decided to set a boundary about journaling with collage. I spent many years collaging daily. All those years later and over 1000 collages made. That just had to stop. TOO much. I am however a fan of the subconscious mind process and applying that method to a journal makes sense to me. The boundary I ultimately decided on was new moon or once a month collages. This is something i can reliably count on re: a set date on my calendar and be committed to. The act of creating within the intention of a new moon feels good to me. Out of that comes 12 annual collage works that are often very telling and or autobiographical. 

The 2024 New Moon collection is below. With the exception of 1, they are all 5x5. Next year I will size them 4x6, just to change the format a bit. Only one is stitched. One of the things I was personally grappling with this past year was being ghosted. A baffling hurtful experience that not only occurred in 2024, but other times as well. The upset about it and the coming to terms/accepting it showed up in these collages. 

The all blue collage reminds me of a favorite photograph I once took in a museum. I included the photo in this set so you could see. 

3. Collage With Me Sessions is an email course that I teach that can go also go into that boundary. One collage from each session or 4 per year. The Collage With Me Program is now in its 5th year.  

4. Beginning in 2025, I will keep separate composition notebooks for each practice. I just completed a notebook with about 4 years of the above type of work. If you held that notebook in your hand you would feel the love and the vibe of it. As I move forward I want to keep the tone of each in their own space. Maybe it's an as I age thing. Safety and order.