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#3: Collage Your Fragments

By Chris Dunmire, CoachingYourCreativity.com

(continued from page 1)

As I listened to the dialogue in the movie between the two main characters about the immense beauty of the Grand Canyon contrasted with small human lives, I became acutely aware of the symbolism of the fish, torn magazine fragments, odd found objects, and binding adhesives surrounding me in the creative space where I was “composing out of chaos.” The artist in me was bringing together bits and pieces, ideas and concepts, and unrelated elements to form a whole new creation, a piece of art created out of my own life fragments.

And that’s when it struck me — how our lives are just like collages, and collages within collages composed of the unlimited elements of living: collected experiences, faded memories, shredded beliefs, found knowledge, bitter lessons, haphazardly torn bits, and precisely cut pieces. Wondrously, as our days unfold, old elements are subtracted and new elements are added — our Life Collage dynamically changes with us revealing a slightly different picture each day.

So what does this mean for you, one who is seeking new ways to nurture your creative life? Here are three possibilities:

1. Recognize that YOU are the artist of your own life. The elements you acquire through living will always be yours. Own them. Honor them. How you choose to use them to “paint your canvas”, “write your book”, or “teach your students” is truly in your own hands. Don’t give your brushes away to someone else to decide how your creative life will be.
   
   
2. Embrace the elements, fragments, and torn bits piling up in your life space (the positive and negative). Your collection of unique experiences, insights, and understandings are an endless reservoir for inspiration and wisdom in your creative work and play. Nobody in the world has — or will ever have — the same pile as you, and that’s a wonderful thing!
   
   
3. Use your fragments to your creative advantage. While it’s easy to use and reuse the pleasant pieces, resist the temptation to sweep the ugly pieces under the rug. Channel that angry energy from a disappointment into a work or calling that brings you compassion and peace. Combine old fears with new insights to build confidence in yourself, and by extension, in your work. Push your depression into an expression and see how differently you feel.

While reading the last few pages of Barbara Abercrombie’s book, Courage and Craft: Writing Your Life into Story I came across what I believe is a complementing bit that pulls the theme of this article into center focus. On page 141 she writes:

“To live your own true and precious life, you need to express yourself and make your inner life as important and known as your visible life. Whether you’re published or not, you need to turn the chaos and the glimpses of beauty, the questions and the search for answers, the days and months and years of your life into something meaningful on a page [canvas, performance, product, invention, or other manifestation].

When you finish a piece of writing [or art or other expression of you], you’ve reached out to the world with your own truth. You’ve told your story.”

Yes, collage your fragments. Your life is your work of art.

• • • Take Action Now! • • •

Take 10 minutes to remember the important lessons you’ve learned in your life. Write down all that come to mind. Create a mental image of what your Life Collage looks like today. Sketch it next to your lessons. What pictures and words will you use? What statement needs to be made? What hard energies do you wish to transform? What soft emotion begs to be whispered? •

© 2007 Chris Dunmire, CoachingYourCreativity.com. All rights reserved. (07/02/07). Please do not duplicate this article elsewhere without my permission.

About the Author
Chris Dunmire is the author of the Dollar Bill Origami Money Plant and driving force behind the popular Creativity Portal Web site. She finds meaning as an artist, humorist, and creativity coach and channels her overactive imagination into multiple containers on display at ChrisDunmire.com.