Cohort 52 is a platform for emerging voices from the Applied Art & Design program at Sierra College in Northern California. Cohort 52 is facilitated by Assistant Professor Vincent Pacheco.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Joy Nelson Canales, I am 21 years old and attend Sierra College as a second-year in Graphic Design!
How much experience do you have with collage?
I don’t have too much experience with collage unless you count the few times I did some collages in art class back in elementary school.
Collage artists tend to be picky when it comes to their source material. Can you talk about your approach for selecting your images and/or publications?
For my approach selecting my images for my collages, I went through several Game Informer magazines and movie director magazines and picked images out of those magazines for each collage, pairing them how i thought they fit best.
Were there any large themes you intended to explore or unpack before you began with this series of work? Did you stay on theme, or did things change as you began physically cutting and pasting images?
I mainly tried my absolute best to stay on theme so it would all work together cohesively with each collage.
How did your background and life experiences inform your collages?
My background didn’t really influence the theme of my collages. I really just thought it would be a cool topic to explore.
What was your environment and set-up like when making the work? Did you listen to music? Did you work in isolation, or were you surrounded by distraction? Do you think this influenced the work you made?
I worked on these collages at my desk in my room while listening to music as it helped my work flow speed up to help me get into a solid rhythm for each collage. I don’t really think this influenced my work but the isolation of my room really helped me focus better than if I were to have worked on these collages downstairs in the kitchen or in a public space.
Scissors or X-Acto?
A mix of both but mainly scissors.
Was there anything unexpected that emerged while creating your work? Any new epiphanies?
Nothing that I can really remember.
Looking at your work again, has your understanding of your collages changed over time? Has any hidden meaning emerged?
My understanding of my collages hasn’t really changed over time but I’ve enjoyed working on them a lot.
