Collage Day!

Last week, I had the privilege of putting together a collage day at Kendo entitled PAPEL AT PANDIKIT. It was an opportunity for me to showcase the 100 Tiny Collages I am pretty proud to have completed, and also share the joy of collage making by holding a small workshop, and inviting a bunch of other artists to display their work. It turned out to be a really fun afternoon!

The festivities began with a capsule workshop on collage making. Six participants plus a few other artists joined in the paper crafting. After a short intro on the “what, whys and hows” of collaging, the goal was for them to create a piece that best reflected where they are in their lives at the moment. It was no easy feat, I must say, but everyone saw it through and did so well. I specially loved how the table was covered in all sorts of paper and magazine clippings!

People came throughout the afternoon until night time to check out the exhibit. Aside for my 100 collages, we had Sofia Cope, Mansy Abesamis, Tony Tuason, Eva Yu and Carla Crespo put up their collage work as well. It turned out to be a very interesting mix of styles and elements. Sofia and Carla contributed very insightful digital collage prints, Mansy had a 3D piece with pottery incorporated into it (which is something she also loves to do), Tony showcased three impressively hand-cut pieces and Eva put up a vibrant watercolor artwork turned collage. It was delightful to see them all together on one wall!

As people came in to admire the artwork, they also had a chance to shop from a variety of art supplies and paper products. Anina Rubio sent her pre-loved stuff (with a lot of unopened and unused items mixed in) to sell at our mini paper fair. Another table was dedicated to our featured artists’ merch where they sold a bunch of prints, postcards and stickers.

And just to add to the fun, we even put up a “community collage board” in a corner where anyone and everyone was welcome to contribute to. You simply had to add your own idea or thought to the forming collage by cutting an image from any of the magazines in a stack we had prepared and gluing it onto the board. I was quite surprised to see many people pitch in.

The Collage Day did turn out just as I had imagined and more! I have never really put up an exhibit of my own work before so I was quite hesitant to do it at first. But I’m glad I had pushed through with it. It was a good way to celebrate the art and also to talk about how the project came to be, what I learned and what the pieces mean to me.

To end, I’d like to thank my partners at Kendo Creative — Kayo, Ynna and Gill for giving me freedom to bring my ideas to life at our studio. Thanks to Kayo for convincing me to do a show and display all 100 collages together. Thanks to Sofia, Mansy, Tony, Carla and Eva — all of them creatives I admire, for being so willing to contribute to the show. Your work made PAPEL and PANDIKIT a whole lot more interesting! Thanks to all those who joined the workshop and those who dropped in to shop. Thanks to all my friends who came by, hung out, took photos and showed support. I truly truly appreciate you guys being there!

The PAPEL AT PANDIKIT exhibit is still open for viewing until September 14. If you missed it last week, feel free to drop by Kendo before it ends. Most of the collage work are for sale. If interested, simply email us at kendocreative@gmail.com or send us a message on Instagram: @kendocreative.