Issue 5 Artist Spotlight | our thomas
C+B: Tell us about yourself, our thomas!
ot: When not creating, I’m a non-profit administrator with a focus on fundraising and communications. In addition to being a collage artist, I’m also a haiku poet, and I list among my inspirations the sea, Japanese gardens, birds, and forests.
C+B: How has your relationship with your work changed since you first started creating?
ot: When I first tried making collages I was very much driven by two unfortunate tendencies: comparing my art to the works of other artists and starting with a specific idea of what I wanted the final piece to look like. Those can be soul- and art-killing habits. I’ve really embraced the idea of process and also of intuitive making, and that perspective is just much wider, more beautiful, and deeper. Even my “failures” are part of a longer, more resonant arc now, and that feels authentic and meaningful to me.
C+B: Share some details about your process for creating.
ot: Creating collage is very much an intuitive, organic process for me, and so I tend to work best in shorter bursts, 45 to 75 minutes at a time. I find that if I push beyond that, I start thinking rather than feeling my way forward. One advantage of shorter bursts is that I often return to pieces still in progress, and in the interim they feel like they’ve taken on new perspectives and possibilities. That’s one reason I like to work on several pieces simultaneously.
I tend to make a little offering to the universe before I start working – expressing gratitude for the time and ability to engage in something so powerful and intimate as art making. While I’m working, there’s definitely an “in the studio” mix that I listen to, an eclectic (and continually growing) playlist that jumps across genres, moods, and time periods; the Velvet Underground might be followed by a Handel Oratorio and then Minor Threat followed by Charles Mingus.
C+B: What is something exciting that you're looking forward to in your life or creative life?
ot: As both a haiku poet and collage artist, I’m working toward bringing both mediums in conversation with each other. I tend to treat them and engage in them separately; one or the other, never both together. I’m working on a project right now that applies cut and paste techniques to haiku; I’m very excited by it, though I worry the audience for such an approach might be pretty small. Still, it’s pushing me beyond my comfort zone, and that makes it worth it even if it doesn’t get shared with the world.
Find and support our thomas here:
IG: @our.thomas
Website: ourthomasart.com
(The Material Has Been Arranged, 6.75’’ x 9.75’’, paper collage, ©our thomas)
My ideal collaboration: I think good collaboration ideally allows each creator to remain quintessentially themselves, while also pushing each to grow what’s possible. A lot of the collaboration I’ve seen in collage is what one might label “call and response.” One creator starts the piece and hands it off to the other to further develop or finish and so on and so forth. That play of both freedom and constraint – and of discovering how one’s work might spark another artist – can be powerful. I haven’t done much of it, but I’m definitely open to exploring the possibilities.
A creator I admire: I don’t think one can work in collage without referencing in some way Joseph Cornell. His ability to employ common objects and images to create otherworldly mystery and narrative is so powerful and alluring. Another of my collage inspirations, the reason I began to explore collage, is Nick Bantock, the creator of the Griffin and Sabine books, where images adorn letters and postcards to tell an evolving and mysterious story. Again, it’s that ability to signal some sort of deeper, more resonant world that exists beneath the surface of the ordinary that I find so compelling. I hope my best collage works begin to hint at that other world that exists inside me and inside those who experience my collage.
If I didn’t work in my current medium, I would like to try: Well, I do try my hand occasionally at watercolor, and so that might be a starting point for further exploration if collage wasn’t possible, and I’ve always been intrigued by oil painting – maybe I could become a fine tonalist painter.
My hope for those viewing my work: I hope in looking at my work, viewers feel in some way stirred by it – made curious, surprised, excited, intrigued, or inspired – reminded in some small way of the deeper world that exists below the surface of our everyday lives. Collage feels like a fantastic medium to accomplish this sleight of hand.
