“When I create my collages, I don’t necessarily go in with a plan.“
Interview
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Marcene Valenzuela, I’m an aspiring artist in pursue of a degree in Applied Art and Design. I’m a very passionate person with a love for music, rollerblading, and art. Music is genuinely my core, it helps me with my creative process and is a huge coping mechanism for me. I struggle with a multitude of mental illnesses that affect my daily life and relationships, which led me through a series of love and heartbreak.
How much experience do you have with collage?
I have decent experience with collage. I’ve made over 50 collages, additionally I’d say its my choice of artistic expression.
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?
To create this body of work, I used books focusing on liminal art, art magazines, as well as snippets of my favorite poetry books. I just flip through the pages searching for something that will catch my eye.
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?
When I create my collages, I don’t necessarily go in with a plan. I found that the themes of love and heartbreak shined through my work. As I cut and pasted the images, I could feel my emotions spilling out on the pages. I created a collection of collages that mirrored the emotions I had been going through at the time.
How did your background and life experiences inform your collages?
I was always the pack-mule of the family, constantly carrying items and doing tasks even while on vacation so I could barely enjoy myself or the environment around me. Coming from less fortunate circumstances, I know the allure of wanting to spend money and showing off, however it takes away from the important things in life, like experiencing the scenery and ecosystem on the top of an island.
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’m completely surrounded by distractions constantly. From pets, movies playing on my second monitor, to my parents constantly telling me to clean up messes that they created in the kitchen. I think taking breaks from the collages to do something else had me thinking about and rearranging my collage work in ways I wouldn’t have thought about if I never took a break.
Scissors or X-Acto?
X-Acto blades are my preference. Scissors and shaky hands don’t work as well as a blade pressed into a cutting matt for stability.
Was there anything unexpected that emerged while creating your work? Any new epiphanies?
I wouldn’t say that there was anything that was unexpected. I just let my mind go blank and make collages and patterns.
Looking at your work again, has your understanding of your collages changed over time? Has any hidden meaning emerged?
To be honest, when I first started, I had absolutely no direction for the collages at all. A hidden meaning emerged from rearranging the graphics in certain ways, so I stuck with that and tried to emphasize it.
