I was doing some paper collaging recently and in the moment wondered why it felt so appropriate to have a workspace strewn with paper cuttings.

Then I remembered my mom would have a pile of papers at the table. She went through them, carefully select something that was meaningful, and tear or cut it out and place it in another pile of papers to be later traded in for discounts on goods or services.

As many others in the US, my mom clipped coupons out of newspapers, flyers, magazines, wherever. This was another activity that became added to the list of things that one did as a good house wife on a tight budget. My mom did this exercise. As if it could save the family… Something.

If one put in the time to hunt through advertising for the right scrap of paper and turned it in at the right store, within the right time frame, one could exchange a coupon for something of much greater value. Like magic.

Apart from coupon clipping, my mom also made these reinforced, cut out paper dolls for me. I have memory of figures that were a medieval prince and princess or some such? Just illustrations cut from somewhere and turned into low-budget toys for a child. Like magic.

Less can be more. Less can also just be an expression of less.

In junior high school I had to do a specific collage project to personalize my art class portfolio. I lost marks on it because the composition was imbalanced. That annoyed me. I wasn’t concentrating on making a serious art piece. I could barely concentrate on anything. I was trying to find a way to have fun with it, get into the junior high flow projecting good feelings somehow while I– you know– also endured crushing, dizzying anxiety that came with pover-puberty.

At twelve and thirteen I was already having suicidal ideations. My brain gets soaked in all new levels cycling levels of mind-altering hormones and I have homework and mid-week bible study plus no two day weekends for all the church I have to attend. And what class do I have on which day? And where is that classroom? My mind isn’t letting me make any of the math formulas make sense. And oh, I can feel other students talking shit about me– did I menstruate on my skirt again(?!) And, dear god, the number of idiosyncratic teachers to deal with has tripled! And I never have proper gym clothes… And… Boy howdy, that there Jesus feller did never give me that peace that passes understanding!

I was rightly expressing my inner state with an imbalanced composition. I should have gotten full marks, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain my “process” or make an “artist’s statement” defending my choices. Some outspoken neuro-normie student could have done it. I wasn’t one of those.

Now, here I am in a third world country, going through death-puberty while reluctantly being parent to an elderly toddler nearing death-infancy– who nags me to do house chores in two languages, while I am doing them– and for some reason I’m cutting up paper, arranging print scrap. As if that it could possibly make any difference in the world to this household.

If only the patterns I find myself following would make a lovely suit or something at the end. 

I know for others scissors are more than a simple technology. They are a powerful magic tool. Just think about how you get to wield two blades at the same time with such subtle precision. And two blades should be more dangerous, but the risk of harm is minimized. They are fairly safe, until they are not. Symbolically, that is strong stuff.

In my hands, I would cut at all of you with scissors if the sting meant I had your attention, no, more than that, if I had your understanding. But no. However frustrated I am, I give the bunted sides– out of ingrained “Christian” politeness. Yet I am cutting to soothe anyway.

And the bricolage I come up with– for all that goes behind this “comfort hobby–” appears mediocre and futile to my inner critic. Especially when there is a “real” visual artist making “real” art in the same house.