My Early Collage Days

It was February 2020, the month that saw COVID-19 virus flourish into a global pandemic. I would turn 50 years old later that year, and, as destiny would have it, I was marching headlong into menopause. It was during this confluence of monumental events, both inner and outer, that I started experimenting with collage art.

It began one lazy afternoon in the early days of the shutdown during which I read an article from an old issue of Whole Earth Review (No. 72 Fall 1991) about how to make your own “Neuro-Tarot Deck.” I didn’t know much about Tarot at the time, but I was intrigued by the surrealistic images that accompanied the article and I felt inspired to play around with the idea. With an accessible assignment and newfound time on my hands, it provided the space I needed to give collage a try and allow it to start taking root in me. I had no idea how important this one act of listening to that inner nudge would be and what it would help to unlock within me.

According to Antero Alli, the author of the aforementioned article, “a Neuro-Tarot is a symbolic device for tracking images in the psyche and the world around us, for the purpose of creating more imaginative interactions with it all.” He goes on to say that “an effective Neuro-Tarot depends on the integrity of your self-knowledge…of your willingness to completely expose yourself to yourself.” With this intriguing call to inner exploration, I began creating one card at a time.

**Water Nymph in the Sea of Love**, 2020

I started by gathering my materials: 5 x 7 index cards, glue sticks, magazines, and cutting tools. I got as far as making 11 cards before I started moving on to larger canvases. The cards I completed are like sketches, made quickly without much thought or skill (some are already falling apart three years later). There are marks left from words that I removed, deciding midway through that I wanted to create images without language. Simply put, they’re a technical mess.

However, something more interesting and powerful than perfect execution began emerging from this exercise. I was feeling moved and affected by the images as if I’d had nothing to do with making them. I felt more like a witness to something that was emerging of its own will; I later realized this was the beginning of my encounter with my own unconscious.

Certainly, we all encounter strange, surreal imagery in our dreams during sleep, but through art, I was learning how to make contact with unknown aspects of my psyche while awake. This was a new way for me to know myself more consciously, and it was both exciting and disturbing. I was (and remain) intimidated by the idea of learning things about myself from a deeper, unknown place. Our egos like to believe that they know everything and are in control. Over the past three years, however, I have learned first-hand that this is profoundly illusory. I began to understand the meaning of being “asleep”—in a spiritual sense— and to connect “waking up” with what was happening at my collage table. I was waking up to what I had read about for years through my interest in Depth Psychology; the notion that our psyches are composed of many individual and collective archetypes.

According to C.G. Jung, an early 20th-century pioneer of Psychoanalytic Psychology and the grandfather of Depth Psychology, our psyches are made up of ancient patterned energies, one of which he calls the Shadow Self. My layman’s understanding of the Shadow is that this is the pent-up energy that has been repressed in order for us to please our parents, be liked at school, avoid and deny fears, and generally fit into society. Being civilized is a necessary process of human survival and evolution, which affords us safety, comfort, and even luxury, but it comes at a cost; we pay for our civility through our Shadow. In other words, we can’t just do away with our animal nature and natural impulses. All of nature’s energies are still active within us and they don’t just disappear because we deny they exist. As scary as it may seem to confront that which we’d rather not acknowledge about ourselves, it is a necessary part of becoming a whole person. In fact, the great irony of confronting our Shadows is that it’s the only way we can live in peace and harmony, both within ourselves and with others.

Our Shadow Selves need not come out in destructive ways, but when ignored or denied they can become motivators of harmful, even monstrous, behavior. To me, this is one of the gifts and necessities of art-making. It serves as a mirror for us to encounter unknown parts of ourselves, which is the first step toward integrating, and ultimately, allowing them a place in our conscious lives. When we do this we can bypass the unconscious act of projecting our Shadows onto others. This brings us closer to peace.

While making contact with deeper truths about myself was initially disruptive to my life— for example, I separated from my husband for three months near the end of 2020 —ultimately that disruption served my growth and healing and we reunited with an improved, healthier dynamic. I don’t like to use the words “good” and “bad” anymore, because I’ve learned that everything is relative, as Einstein demonstrated. We’ve become indoctrinated to see things from one side; we want everything to be good. I have lived my whole life feeling compelled to be only “good,” but I now believe this naive notion contributes to our disconnection from ourselves, both individually and collectively, and does us much harm. Shadow work is about coming to terms with our dual nature (we are both human and being, it says so in the moniker we’ve chosen for ourselves). Coming to terms with these deep, nature-given truths helps us to come home to ourselves more profoundly and meaningfully. It’s all a part of our work in consciousness while we’re here in these temporary forms.

The mysteries of life and death are never fully revealed to us in this dimension, and even though I see the enormous value of science, reason, and logic, I’m not convinced that the powers of deduction and induction alone can answer all of our existential questions. I have faith, however, that we can become more aware of ourselves within the mystery, and more consciousness means more power to guide our lives in the direction of our choosing, both individually and collectively.

I’ve included here 11 of the Neuro-Tarot cards I completed in the first months I started making collages. Each of them has become a talisman of parts of myself that I am still getting to know. I look at the images to help me connect with these unknown, perhaps disenfranchised, aspects of my psyche. When images begin to emerge while I’m composing I often have no idea what meaning they are trying to convey to me; and yet, I feel something stirring within that feels akin to a deeper connection with myself.

All parts of us want and need to be acknowledged. We are meant to become conscious of the entirety of who and what we are, to claim ourselves, and ultimately to be the sovereign of our own life. Moreover, subconsciously revealed imagery that comes through when we make art can bring our attention to aspects of ourselves that we’ve disowned. The imagery’s purpose isn’t necessarily to disrupt our lives or bring us harm, but rather to bring to our attention that which we need to reconnect with and bring back from the shadowlands of our psyches. In this way, contemplating an uncanny or surreal image that you have produced can help you to become more authentic, whole, and balanced. Disconcerting though it may be, the Shadow is not our enemy; it is our saving grace. But that doesn’t mean it’s always a smooth road; in fact, it can get downright bumpy and uncomfortable along the journey to wholeness. We don’t have to do it alone though. In these posts, I hope to share my process of waking up to my dual nature through self-inquiry, journaling, and making art. I will also encourage you to do the same for your Self. Together we can mine for the gold that lies in our Shadows.

NOTES & RESOURCES:

“The Neuro-Tarot: Designing Your Own Deck of Cards,” by Antero Alli, Whole Earth Review (No. 72 Fall 1991)

For further reading on the Tarot and Shadow, see the June 30, 2023 publication titled “Dynamics of the Diabolic” by Stephen Gerrinder at Joseph Campbell Foundation.

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