Kedema Collage Art

I finally did a thing that I’ve wanted to do for a quite a while. Years ago, one of my biggest joys was making collages. My first favorite was when I managed to create a Tower of Babel. Not long after came the Compass of Maps.

I stopped for many reasons. The poor Compass of Maps got abandoned because I wanted to do things to it that I didn’t have the know how to implement. (Basically to turn in into a hybrid compass clock with a dome over the face and a metal casing around like a real compass but with clock hands.)

One could also accuse space and time — life got in the way you might say. And so, a great love was neglected.

However, part of my “Learning How to Shine” lessons is to recapture the essence of lost dreams. One of them was that my collages have a life outside of my living room. It took me a few years to even find out how to begin, but I schlepped to an art print place and did the first step — getting them scanned professionally. The next step — setting up an Etsy store — was much longer than I had expected; like a hydra, every single task ended up being five. But I did it! I’d like to introduce you to Kedema Collage Art!

Below are descriptions in more detail of each collage (and there will be more to come).

But tell me, what is something you stopped doing that you loved? What held you back? What would you need to return?

Tower of Babel Collage

I drew out the framework of where I wanted things to be. Then I began cutting. I started with the old, yellowed paper at the bottom, which I knew— the moment I saw it discarded on the street—would be the “sand” of the collage. Then pictures of skies for the sky (the cool clouds near the top are from Hubble). The sky was the easy part, though the moon took a while to find.

I wanted the languages I found to really be found. The collage includes 20 languages: Amharic, Arabic, Celtic, Chinese, Cuneiform (some of which I sketched on top of the collage), English, French, Georgian, Greek, ancient Hebrew, modern Hebrew, Hieroglyphics (my pride & joy), Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian (gifted by a friend for the task), Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish, and what I am 95% sure is Thai (from a post office flyer that clearly wasn’t for me).

There are a variety of flags and symbols— such as the Olympic symbol and the Mayan sun and moon gods, the Hebrew name of god at the top of the tower, as well as strategically placed English phrases such as: “pillars of creation,” “mysteries of the universe,” and “he loved the people.”

I cut the palm trees out of images of plants and wood. The camels on both sides are actually one picture: The right side is the water reflection of the left, reminiscent of a mirage. The silver windows are from upcycled cigarette packaging, and the gold windows are from confiscated gold paper from a certain educational facility. The icings on the cake are the sun I painted myself – cut out of another painting –and the REAL sand.

The Compass of Maps Collage

A collection of maps creates a compass: It is a unique, handmade collage inspired by the Bünting cloverleaf map with Jerusalem at the center of the world, yet it is crafted in the shape of a compass rose. It was created from painstakingly cutting out vintage maps and images of water, the pieces placed together like a mosaic. The border was then painted like a textured, copper bezel; the points of the wind rose, embellished with a gold metallic pen, and the arabesque swirls of a calligraphy pen.