Blog
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Spring Equinox Collages!
Detail from “What Is Your Next Stop?” Detail from “Enjoy Every Moment” Detail from previous collage -
Examples of Students’ Responses to Their Collages in ESL and Communication Classes
Sergi’s Collage, 2013 In the right corner, you can see a shark. He seems to represent fear. In the top left corner, this is a cute dog. It’s something kind, something good, something positive. You can also see the butterfly. And there’s a man who try to reach the stars.
This collage is about my thoughts about my life. Sometimes we hear a noise and we think that it is something dangerous. We try to turn back and looking what it is, but usually it’s something cute like this cute dog who want to play and make a noise. Fear pulls you back. If we release our fear, we can reach to the stars.
Joshua’s Collage, 2013 When you have some trouble, you must be like this woman and go ahead and keep going. Don’t stop. Sometimes when you get in trouble, your emotions is very dead. But sometimes in your life you can find little beautiful things that will encourage you, like a flower or a cup of cappuccino. They will let you have power so you can just keep going to face the trouble.
Geraldine’s Collage, 2015 When I came to Canada, I had to start again at the bottom. I struggled and had a lot of stress. The stairs show my difficult climb back up to success.
Omar’s Collage: We Are Not Perfect, But That’s Okay Many of us have several ways to flip our lives back around, going through stressful situations emotionally and physically. Showing the girl falling demonstrates how her emotions were completely falling and just giving up. The flip around arrow explains how the drop suddenly comes to show a slightly better outcome.
Detail from Omar’s Collage The pattern blocks show the building up the courage to over conquer whatever it will be. Slightly upway through the building blocks, they suddenly seem about to collapse even though they are still standing. The shield with the multiple arrows shows how many thoughts are going through. The negative and positive are fighting the battle, being protective and trying to collaborate together.
Detail from Omar’s Collage The rose with the heart shows how the negative and positive collate together to bring something beautiful. The arrow and the hexagon shape flare slowly, making its way through developing and throwing the anger and stress away. In the ending the flare will explode. The feathers or leaves expose the final outcome.
Detail from Omar’s Collage Post navigation
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Elora Cataract Trail after th -
Winter Pilgrimage to Sugar Ridge Retreat Centre
Abstract impression of retreat centre from cabin 
Close-up of milkweed (part of an organic art piece inside the retreat centre) 
Interior study, retreat centre -
Wintry Plants and Tree Scenes, Scarborough 2019
Queen Anne’s Lace creates / goblet for single serving / of dignified snow 
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Organic Ice Sculpture Attached to a Branch Discovered in a Creek at Martha LaFite Thompson Nature Sanctuary
Turning the ice sculpture to find new angles revealed an astonishing variety of shapes and images: a skull, a bird’s beak, a face composed of vegetables like a 16th-century Arcimboldo painting, a baby elephant, a complicated internal organ, a collection of single-celled organisms, and an antelope. What else may be seen in this versatile and multi-faceted natural object?
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The Missouri River and the Hotel Frederic, Boonville
Missouri River, Boonville 
Missouri River, Boonville 
Missouri River, Boonville 
Second Floor Sitting Room, Hotel Frederic 
Second Floor Sitting Room, Hotel Frederic 
Second Floor Sitting Room, Hotel Frederic -
Eglinton Ravine, Wexford Woods and Reflective Library Wall, Scarborough
Culvert at Eglinton Ravine 
Wexford Woods 
Tree Squid of Wexford Woods 
Centennial College Library, Ashtonbee Campus -
Visual Visits from Ottawa, Upstate New York, Toronto, and Scarborough
Pine Grove Trails, Ottawa 
Pine Grove Trails, Ottawa 
Alto Cinco Restaurant, Syracuse, New York 
Upstate New York 
Distillery District, Toronto 
Scarborough Museum (Cornell House) -
Thank you, Montréal (September 2018)
Carre St-Louis 
Carre St-Louis 
Carre St-Louis 
Carre St-Louis 
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Collages on the Theme of Resilience
The artwork pictured here represents a sample taken from roughly ninety collages that students in three sections of a class called A Wellness Approach to Stress Management produced on the theme of resilience. Many thanks to Donata Ling for inviting me and my giant suitcase of materials to her classes for several lively and rewarding sessions!
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Overcoming Barriers with Collaborative Collage-Making (Session for Centennial College’s Teaching and Learning Symposium)
It was a pleasure to share a paper-strewn table with seven participants who made collages on the theme of Equity and Inclusion. As we gathered, talked, cut, and glued, the discussion centered on how to apply collage-making to a variety of learning tasks, such as presentations, vision boards, and reflective practice.In a post-workshop conversation, one participant kindly offered to share some thoughts about her collage:
Donata Ling’s Collage It’s your differences that make you you.For each day that I walk into the classroom, it’s important for me that each student experiences a sense of wonder like the expression of ‘Wow’ in the picture. Each student is on that journey to find wonder and curiosity, which is made possible by asking questions and opening oneself to others and the world. This is what I have done through my own experiences of ‘wandering off the beaten path’ and seeing the world in its splendor and beauty. After cutting out the landscape image, I discovered a shape – the human face. It’s there that you can discover the difference in each student – in their expressions and more importantly their story (Donata Ling).
Many thanks to all who attended the session! Your insights, engagement, and creativity enriched my day! -
Walks by the Water
Highland Creek 
Highland Creek 
Highland Creek 
Highland Creek 
Toronto Aquarium 2018 
Toronto Aquarium 2018 
Water Feature, Women’s College Hospital, Toronto 
Little Rouge Creek 
Bank of Little Rouge Creek -
Nails in the Tree: A Reflection on Trauma
Sylvan Park, Scarborough I want to heal from the damage caused by two nails that have pierced me. Over the years, they have twisted themselves into cracked pockets of bark, digging in, holding fast to their reluctant host.
“Brace yourself,” well-wishers advise. “Just grab those rusty bastards by the bent heads and rip them out. Then you’ll be free!” It is easy for others to say this, for they perceive the nails as separate and distinct from my flesh. They judge me for cleaving to familiar cruelties, the very devices that undermine my stability. However, these well-meaning friends haven’t experienced the worst legacy of violence, how it seeps into the body, infiltrating its cells and poisoning trust.
I miss the clarity of rage that met the shock of the first hammer blow and the next and the next. As each nail bit closer to the core in widening rings of pain, the idea that I had “asked for it” never crossed my mind. But I was young and did not anticipate how quickly righteous anger cools to self-doubt. Matching pain to resigned silence is a mistake that re-makes itself.
The man who held the hammer is long dead, but the nails he selected still insinuate, still ache. The memories sink more and more severely into my limbs each season, and their sharp points have come to seem as normal as shame. Although he never explained why he chose me to be punished, he was careful to convince me I deserved it. That way, I continue to self-crucify as he intended, a sadistic immortality.
The two nails drive his name deeper with every splash of rain on metal, every ice-storm that conducts cold into my veins. Yet without this Frankenstein map of ancient injuries, who am I? If I deny the splinters that have shaped me, how can I muster the audacity to be whole?
