Creativity & Connection In the Time of Covid

During my Winter Break, I had a grand opportunity to catch up with my college roommate from our senior year. (Side note: College was over half a life time ago!!) Facebook of course has been doing a fabulous job of connecting everyone for the last dozen years, but I haven't "seen seen" her in probably 2 decades--if not more! This time, however, it was "live and in person." Well, as "live and in person" as you can in the middle of the pandemic when you live on opposite coasts. We met up in a Zoom creative workshop that she was hosting on collage making. With a whole lot of extra holiday time on my hands due to not traveling, taking part seemed to be a no-brainer.

In former days gone by, I was a big time scrapbooker.... but these days, most of my art and photographs tends to be digital. Canva.com is how I make a lot of my GTG art. I live on my computer! But, I still have a lot of good supplies, and I know my way around scissors and a glue stick. As I suspected, the hands-on, physical nature (tied in with the open forum to let my creative juices flow) did this girl's body and mind some good that afternoon!

Our 3-hour class was intimate with only two other folks (whom I had never met before)--one from the upper Northwest and one from Mexico. But truly, with Zoom, less is more! Too many people becomes hard to jockey for conversation. And, those 3 hours easily turned to 4 as we all parallel played with our creating in true quilting bee fashion. My old former roommate (Old?! We're not old!!) and I picking up without ever missing a beat AND she got drive-bys of my kids--something you don't get in Facebook photos alone! Plus, I got to meet two amazing new people. We all chatted of our own personal pandemic pandemoniums, covering a range of 2020 topics, trials, & tribulations, as well as the upcoming new year. 

My college collage pal was open and flexible in her facilitating, and it ebbed into each of the 4 of us having our own approach to the workshop. I went in with an open mind, not really sure what I was going to create... and sometimes that is the very best way to do it. I loosely went with my One Word "Heal" ponderings, and as I went to retrieve some material to slice-and-dice for collage making, my 2020 wall calendar (along with a holiday catalog) seemed like the absolute perfect medium to chop to bits. There certainly was something cathartic and healing about destroying such a rough year--then rebuilding it to something better. An excellent creative use in repurposing!

My final product ended up being a poster of sorts, with a pocket of motivational cards that I could switch up or revisit as needed. For right now, I'm not sure where I'm going to hang it, but I'm feeling like it will land on the wall of my office at school. Here's my "collage-a-majiggy poster-y thingy."

And here are my cards which live in their 2021 pocket:

One of the things that was particularly satisfying at the end of our collage quilting bee was the variety of the everyone's outcome. One of our collage-mates had a wonderful board book where her creations could live. Another fellow artisan had drawings mixed with paint and collage. My style was probably somewhere in the quirky eclectic contemporary neighborhood (or something like that). Our fearless leader's style rests heavily in vintage--a wonderful way to repurpose items and tap "into the rich history that was." In fact, you can learn more over at her hooray4lala Etsy shop. Be sure to click her "Read more" which definitely delights my heart!

Catching up with old longtime friends AND meeting new, inspiring, interesting people definitely does a heart good. So too does a dose of creativity layered on top. Perhaps that right there is the best collage yet, and just perfect in the time of Covid!

Banner screenshot for @hooray4lala's Etsy shop from https://www.etsy.com/shop/lrobinson?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=913405222; Other photos of my handiwork from this collage workshop!