Tuesday, June 7, 2022

The simplest cut

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The simplest cut

An easy form of collage: 1 + 1 = 3

Austin Kleon

Jun 7

Hey y’all,

When I get stuck, when I have no ideas, when I’m not sure what to do next… I make collages.

The art of collage, for me, is mostly one of contextomy (quoting out of context) and juxtaposition: You put two things next to each other that aren’t really supposed to be together and you get a new thing. (1 + 1 = 3.)

When I’m really bottomed out, I often turn to a kind of collage I call “The Simplest Cut.”

The Simplest Cut is: What’s the least amount of cutting or folding or editing that you can do for maximum effect?

See above for an example. The photo of the woman and the illustration of the bird were were on opposite sides of the same page. I simply tore their heads off and switched them, a la Max Ernst or Tuca & Bertie.

The Simplest Cut can also be used on words. A student in one of my workshops made the newspaper headline collage above from two different headlines, based on one of the exercises in The Steal Like An Artist Journal.

“Lion | uneasy with son’s vegetarianism.”

It was so simple and funny. Structured a great joke: setup and punchline. You could write a whole story based on it. ...

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