My collage

I know you’re probably not wondering about that picture at the top of this blog, but I will tell you its story anyway.

Way back in 2006 I was playing bass in a band called the Little Lovers and Wintah asked me to make a poster for our next gig. So I just sat at the computer waiting for inspiration and I remembered seeing this picture of a pile of heads and thought I’d just get some heads of famous people and stuff we liked and make a similar pile. Initially I tried to make it look like everything had been shoddily cut out with scissors, but I’m not sure if I was that successful in the end.

So this is the poster I made:

Everyone seemed to like it, including Wintah, who can be a very tough critic!

So then fast forward to 2008 and my inner-narcissist suddenly threw this thought into my brain: you are the fucking greatest!

After that, it said, “Why not make your own collage and put in EVERYTHING that you love and have loved! Party.”

And I said, “Aw, ok.”

So it took me about 3 months to complete. I made all these big lists of everything. Music, TV, movies, art, books, childhood fascinations, inspiring thinkers etc etc. It was actually a little more difficult than I thought and there were plenty of things I had to really dig around in my brain to remember. I almost went year-by-year of my life. (But even so, I am constantly reminded of stuff that should have been included.)

Some of the more meaningful stuff is bigger, but that wasn’t a hard rule. Sometime’s there’s multiple references, like the Blues Brothers, or the Beatles. Sometime’s one picture will represent multiple things, like the lego AT-AT.

And as soon as I’d “finished”, then a day later it was out-of-date. So I’d shove that band’s pic in or whatever. Eventually I forced myself to stop and just settle on this snapshot of my life with the intention of doing it all again in five year’s time and seeing how much had changed.

Later I printed it out and framed it and put it on the living room wall.