During the collage workshop, I found myself thinking about a philosophy of literature class I took a few semesters ago during which we discussed the legitimacy of black-out poetry. A lot of people argued that using a marker to obscure all but a few choice words on a page could not be considered an original work, and others argued that black-out poetry was no less legitimate, but simply worked with a smaller lexicon.
I really enjoyed the collage workshop, but I found myself asking a similar question: am I producing something original? The product I pieced together wouldn’t have been possible had Vogue decided against including an Alice in Wonderland shoot in their December issue, or an interior design feature, or an ad featuring an unhappily married couple. But looking at my finished collage, it’s clear that there’s no place for it in Vogue. So obviously the process was transformative, but how much transformation is necessary for a work to qualify as original?
In my opinion, collages are original works. I think that every artist, regardless of medium, borrows aspects from other works or artists. As long as the collage isn’t an exact reproduction of another image, it’s original!