Collage nostalgia: Why my "Dear Diary" wasn't like the other girls'

Recently I was very inspired by @fab.iana posts (go pay a visit, kids! It'd be worth it!) into sharing some corelational content.

Her entries got me thinking retrospectively... because when I was a kid I used to do pieces like that... hardly wanting to compare to art compositions or anything such (!), I did enjoy making analogue collages too.

In fact I have several notebooks filled with magazines cuts, shapes, words and pictures.

Suddenly I realized something: Those notebooks were my diaries... not like the "dear diary" pre-pubescent kid shennaningans of how my day was. But they were part of my thoughts and feelings of that trascendental mutation from child to gronw up.

I've always like to make collages, I found them not only conforting, but they keep me focused and calm. It's the mind connected to mechanical bodily processes: as in managing the scissors way better than a toddler in kindergarden.

I just like to use my hands to make things, "cool" things if possible. Because after all, everything I do ends in a simple mantra: Creation. Construction to add... to improve.

Nowadays, I'd like to tell that weirdo of a girl self: "Hey, dumbass! write the freaking date at least!" Because now that I overhaul these diaries I have no fucking clue what they mean.

At the time I had to be thinking about SOMETHING while making them... right? Even a "nothing" is something.

Did I just wanted to frenetically fill the blank pages with pictures?

Although I'd sometimes leave most of the page empty. (Gotta be honest: I do really have a huge intrigue about what was I into then to have a Salma Hayek pic next to a symbol (fleur du liz?) in the middle of two spaces. It itches.)

Or simply payed tribute to my once obsession with crosses?... I do remember that phase, tho.

Sometimes I'd make WEIRD looking doodles... now what the hell is that (freaking out)

Second looking at it I think it has something to do with Marilyn Manson... The singer, never the murder cult leader.

And other times I would build deep images as this one... I could find a couple of mindful meanings to that one, actually.

How deep, no?

Mind me for a minute, I'm just frowning thinking here.

As years passed by I can clearly notice the collages where a lot more "meaningful" or clearer at least. The hungry pages were running out and I was getting older.

(This is an obvious tribute to Brandon Lee, who was my childhood hero...because of all of the The Crow misterious halo... I know, silly me. Hard to avow.)

Impromptu, changed of diary, change of style: I started to draw, fuzing techniques and making the piece simpler and straightforward.

Right?

But still, I can't tell accurately what this compositions are all about. I'm clueless.

I'm sure it was a confusing time as all adolescent trials are. Gladly those moments were over without aftermath, and even if I don't know what they specifically meant; whatever it was, I did got to overcome it thanks to self expression trough collages.

So, thumbs up for the little artsy me of the time!

Then, Uni came by... and as surprinsingly as it might sound, my mind was less clouded. It's funny how I found a certain order in all this chaos. It's peacefull somehow.

Chaos is order, mess is orderly, ramdon shapes become "one"... neat, arrange, shipshape. Wow... now THIS is really the brain of a collage stundent. No wonder we lost our minds over there weekly.

It's funny how I constantly feel something it's terribly missing when watching an empty wall. As a matter of fact, places without personality give me anxiety... and the creeps. Only crazy people are minimalist. Patrick Bateman coming to mind.

I know, when I'm an old woman I'd regret to have stopped making collages... it's an effort that other daily trivial tasks drain off my body. I can't afford the time (and glue) investment because I have become a blue average adult of the flock.

Sad sigh.

Lastly, as if the spaces in my notebooks were not enough I found a old, also analog, photo of how my bedroom wall used to look like... and I'm beggining to think the American Psycho is in fact sitting on this side of the sreen.

It's hideous I know. But by the time I thought it was cool. Gladly my mother was the chillest kind there ever was. And to be fair, the collage making saved her a pretty penny in child therapists. Am I right or am I right?

Do you do any art, guys? Let me hear about it!

Hope you ejoyed it, ta-da!