The Postal Collage Project No. 12 Exhibition, a collaboration between the Pittsburgh Collage Collective and Berkeley Commonplace, is a celebration of the participation of Pittsburgh artists in the 12th year of the Roundtable Collaboration. The Postal Collage Project is the brainchild of Berkeley Commonplace founder, Marty McCutcheon. Each year in August, participants sign up to participate in a round robin collage project that takes place from September to February. Each participant starts a collage as a Principal Author, then mails their original collage to the next artist in their group of usually five. That next artist and the remaining artists are Contributing Authors to the original collage. Every artist is both a Principal Author to their own collage and a Contributing Author to up to four other collages.
So, how did so many artists from Pittsburgh decide to participate in this project based in California? The Pittsburgh Collage Collective’s founder, Lauren Broyles, discovered the project and spread the word among the collective’s members, who decided to participate. Pittsburgh artists contributed to almost 90 out of ~250 total collages in the Postal Collage Project, quite a significant participation! Because of this, Marty reached out to the Collective to host a show highlighting the contribution of Pittsburgh artists.
As a co-moderator in the Pittsburgh Collage Collective, I helped to set up the show! It was so neat to see how each person interpreted the prompt, which was very loose: create a collage, but be mindful of the cost of postage for your fellow group members. That’s all! A cornerstone of the project is to encourage the autonomy and freedom of each author, who can add or subtract anything as they see fit. There are no restrictions or directions on purpose. What will people do when they are finally free to do what they want, with no one telling them what to do? They get creative. They make mobiles or books, paint or draw, add or remove, etc. With that in mind, another key component of the project is to accept uncertainty and a lack of control. Principal Authors are encouraged to assert their creative power in their collages, but so are Contributing Authors. When the first collage makes its rounds to all artists and returns to the Principal Author, there is a chance the original artist will not like what they get back. However, they can obliterate what other authors have done if they like. Or they can preserve how other authors have contributed. It’s all up to the individual, just as in life. Sure, individuals have power, but total control is not possible in many ways. That’s where creativity comes in. The Postal Collage Project is an examination of that, along with the possibilities of collaboration.
The Postal Collage Project No. 12 Exhibition, hosted by the Pittsburgh Collage Collective in collaboration with Berkely Commonplace, is currently on view at Shaler North Hills Public Library, 1822 Mount Royal Blvd, Glenshaw, PA until August 25th. If you’re in the area, it’s definitely worth a visit! Plus, if you go across the hall, you can participate in a communal collage project connected to the show. Speaking of participation, if you’d like to participate in the Postal Collage Project No. 13, you can find Marty’s contact info here. All ages and abilities are welcome!
Collaborative Collage featuring me- Jen Blalock, Principal Author, with Laya Cooperman, Dexter Coleman, Julia Toal, and Sandy Emerson, Contributing Authors. On view in the Postal Collage Project No. 12 Exhibition.