In making my collages I restrict myself to using only actual original
illustrations from old books. Until last year this meant that my supply
of material was very sparse. But I have now found the place where all
the old books that nobody wants, that no-one can sell, end up.
They are sent to this warehouse from charity shops nationwide. They arrive in huge lorries, packed in sacks. Inside the warehouse about forty people sort them out, to the accompaniment of the beeps from the fork-lift trucks that whizz backwards and forwards all the time. Some are “old books”, or “pre-ISBN” and these are sent to the corner of the warehouse where the majority are deemed unsellable and are thrown into a skip. These skips are hoisted into the back of a huge bulk-carrying lorry and sent off to become cardboard.
But one day a week I stand by that skip and rescue the odd old book. I might remove only one illustration from a single book, or I might remove a dozen. In my improvised studio at home I store the thousands of pictures salvaged and I stare at them until they talk to me.
In my small way, and as a hobbyist, I hope to entertain people and to stimulate ideas and feelings through my collages. I have found collage to be capable of more expression than I had imagined, but a good deal of thought and feeling has to be poured into it before anything of quality comes out.
Most of the amateur collage that I see on the photo-sharing website that I use strikes me as empty and cheap, not to mention ugly. I hope that I may be influential in raising the standards of collage work to some degree.
I would only nominate Federico Hurtado.
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