My Weird Hobby

I’m a huge fan of many artistic pursuits, as I’m sure is no surprise. During lockdown in 2020, a fun and somewhat odd special interest was born. The best way I can describe it is collage meets found poem meets emotional chaos spilling out from inside my brain. I decided to share a few this week, as they bring me a lot of joy.

I’ll usually take one of two directions:

• What theme or emotion do I want to process/express?
• ooh these words are fun, those pictures are cool, let me cut them out, move them around and see what happens…

This one taught me a few things: I like protruding hands, fucking with peoples’ bodies, scale and gender expression, and colour clashing is queen.

My current interpretation: Local introvert has a difficult time socialising.

People are great. People are also very not great. Swings and roundabouts, baby.

Some of these feel a bit juvenile now, but they make me laugh, remember a specific moment or feeling, and give me insight into what my brain was doing at the time.

These are just a few in a wider selection – littered with nsfw, more personal or both. I’m left wondering what I’ve made here? They’re not quite found poems, and they’re not pure enough, cohesive enough or deliberately themed to be scrapbook pages. Regardless, It’s a fun excuse to pour through old magazines and use up stuff that would otherwise go in my yellow bin.