Lament and Resurrection: A Reflection on Two Collages

Lament

These past few days have been painful for me. Hell, most of the past year and a half have been awful. But this week in particular the news hit me as though I were sucker punched and I know that I am not alone in feeling this way. There are a lot of postings on Facebook about hopelessness and despair. People seem to be giving up. It's so easy to let the current circumstances be the final word.

But they aren't. We need to keep reminding ourselves of that.

Still, on my way to work, my feelings of doom and gloom were growing in my gut. I felt I needed to get that "out" and so I imagined myself sitting down at my desk at work and creating a collage in my art journal using words and images that are making me feel this way. I was determined to start my morning this way.

And so I did.

I sat down at my round table and put on some quiet music and began looking for words and images that reflected my inner turmoil. Initially I found single words but was surprised to find whole sentences or phrases that were apropos - from magazines from the 90's no less:

• "Can you live with that?"
• "star-spangled confusion"
• "practicing to deceive"
• "The bell tolls for all"

But soon something surprised me as I moved through this process. I started seeing words and images that spoke to me in a comforting and hopeful way and so I decided that I needed to tear them out as well, making separate piles - one for "lament" and one for "resurrection" (although I hadn't named them as such at the time).

Resurrection

With the two piles of words I decided to make two collages. As I started to put these onthe pages, I was suddenly overcome with awe. I had actually torn out more positive images/words - and there amazing sentences that I came across:

• "Your love lasted through it all."
• "Find a world you thought was lost."
• "Plant a tree."
• "Change is in the wind."
• "A light in the abyss releases life." (I LOVE that one!)

Then there was this, a phrase I had torn out: "becoming a more tolerant, democratic society."

Such wondrous surprises and I just let the images and words wash over me and was overwhelmed with a sense of hope and dare I say it? Joy.

Here are a couple of other thoughts concerning my "Lament" and "Resurrection" collage:

1. I found an image of two separate and identical "crosses" created by the start of building a bridge across a wide chasm. I decided to cut the image in half and pasted a cross in each collage. I know what this means for me. I wonder what it might mean to others who see that?
2. I felt the need to use green crayons to blot out the blank, white spots in my "resurrection" collage and decided to leave the white spaces untouched in the "lament" collage. I have my reasons for that and others can draw their own conclusions as to why I made this choice.
3. I am struck by how large some of the "resurrection" words are compared to those in the "lament" collage. My eye is immediately drawn to "rebirth," "rise," "feast," "the song," and an image of two women smiling and dancing.

I have been turned around.

I am ready to face the future whatever it may hold, knowing that in the end, all will be well. The question is how am I going to be part of making that so.