Being both an artist and a writer often inspires me to go hybrid – to mash-up, combine, contast and discover where such experimentation can take me. These investigations are not about the perfect finished product – they are stepping stones along the path to learning, inspiration and my personal creative development. In October, 2023, I facilitated my first poem / collage workshop as part of the Weardale WordFest. I took some examples of my work and I encouraged the attendees to have a go. If you would like to try some poem / collages of your own, perhaps you might find inspiration here.
1. I used some of my nature monoprints for the collage elements. You can be as precise or as freehand as you feel. I cut some of the prints into strips that were 7mm wide.
2. I marked out a piece of A3 paper from my sketchbook – choose any dimensions you wish.
3. I began to freewrite on each of the lines. Because my monoprints were nature-themed, I decided to make my writing nature-themed too.
I continued writing until I had filled the alloted space.
4. Next I took some scissors and cut along the marked pencil lines.
5. Using the strips of monoprint I had cut, I began to weave – under, over, under over. Over, under, over, under. It’s quite fiddly at first, as the paper seems very frail and bendy, but it gets easier the more you carry on. Warp and weft strengthen one another. It’s like a binding spell. I found that weaving was a wonderfully mindful experience. Thinking about nature caused me to think about the complexity of handmade items – how much such items sit in contrast to our throwaway culture. Imagine having to weave your own clothes – something so hard won would surely be treasured forever.
I thought about the binding of self to nature – the binding of art to words. Becuase of the nature of the weaving, neither art nor word was foregrounded. They were equal in distribution, equally capable of blending truly with the other, equally necessary to one another. What an incredible metaphor for a more positive relationship with nature.
I also thought about the ‘I’ voice, the human presence in nature writing. I found this collage to be a valuable dialogue between self and nature writing, a fascinatng exploration of intersections.
6. When the weave was complete, I glued the edges down, so the piece would not fall apart.
7. I then edged the piece to neaten its appearence. Here is the finished collage.
The next collage I made took a different approach, though it was still nature-themed.
1. I created a sun – to get the circle, I drew around a glass. Sometimes you have to improvise! I divided the circle up into stripes.
2. I coloured the stripes in with marker pens using differend yellow tones as I wanted to create a sun.
3. I drew some straight lines the same width as the lines on the sun.
4. I filled the lines with writing about the sun.
5. I cut along the lines of the text. I cut along the lines of the sun but did not cut entirely through.
6. I wove the sun and the text together, then glued the whole to a backing sheet of paper. When it was dry, I cut away the excess.
7. I decided to make a sky. A sky made from words.
8. I filled the ‘ground’ with a memory.
9. I added lines of colour with pens and strips of paper. Then I added the sun to complete the collage.
Here is the final collage in this series.
1. I cut some of my paper strips into even thinner strips.
2. I drew a rough shape and filled it with text about a wren that lived in our garden.
3. Using pen and paper ‘twigs’, I surrounded my text about a bird with a ‘nest’.
Here is the finished collage.
Jane Burn Poet & Artist 