The Magical Miracle Manifestation Box: A Collage Artist Found!

I am first and foremost a collage artist. I love to make collages. I love to sit myself down in the middle of magazines and my collage cutouts, scissors in hand, to find the images and colors and words that speak to me that day or that have a special message for the person for whom I am making a collage. I love assembling the elements together and gluing them on card, canvas, or wood.

But I got stuck. Stuck in my worries about copyright issues; stuck in my thinking about what my art meant to other people--if it "spoke" to them; stuck in an apartment in which a fan was vibrating and making noise over my head for 12 to 15 hours a day and that was filled with smells and smoke from the restaurant two floors below.

And, in the 7 months I lived in that apartment, I made one collage--only one. I tried selling some of my collage cards at a local boutique and no one bought anything. The owner said that people looked through the cards but no one bought one, not one.

So I really started thinking that my collage days were over and I looked for another outlet for my creativity. And that's when I joined a mandala e-group and started making mandalas and angel doodles. That group opened an avenue for my creativity. I created a whole bunch of mandalas and angel doodles. I even started creating digital mandalas. But then an "interesting" thing happened.

I hurt my right arm carrying my bike upstairs. My elbow was quite afflicted and painful. Soon I couldn't use the computer for any length of time, doodle, or draw a mandala. In fact, I couldn't even write in my "Morning Pages" journal. I was confused and irritated and, yes, angry. What was I supposed to do with my creative longings? Why had this happened? What was the lesson?

There was a part of me that said it was time to go back to collaging. But I resisted. I loved the thrill of making a digital mandala or creating an angel doodle. And I did force my arm to do things it didn't really want to do. Of course, I paid for that in discomfort and a lack of mobility. So eventually I had to let go and stop working on mandalas and doodles. I just had to let go.

Then, we found a new apartment: a place where there was no fan running overhead, where there were no BBQ smells at 10 p.m., and there was no smoke that required running an air purifier all the time; a place where we didn't have to call inspectors and government agencies to get help or keep a log to substantiate our "case." So we moved.

Although moving has not solved all the drama around the old apartment, it did give us a quiet, restful, well-lit place to live. Now, I want to stay in the apartment and do my art. I don't feel like I have to "escape."

The other day I received Denise Linn's January newsletter in my email. One of her suggestions for the new year was to make a "Magical Miracle Box." I took what she said, added a twist of my own, and created the box you can see in the photos at the beginning of this post.

The collage for the box was a struggle in some ways because all the elements didn't necessarily come together easily. For example, I had cut out the word FAITH but couldn't locate it when I was ready to glue the collage on the box. I looked everywhere for it. And when did it show up? After I had glued everything else on the box!

Upon reflection, I realized that it was good that the word didn't "arrive" until then because I certainly would have placed it somewhere else--on the heart was one idea--and that would have eliminated the word "surrender," a very important word in the process of manifesting.

This "Magical Miracle Manifestation Box" has already produced its first magical miracle manifestation--the collage that adorns the top. I wonder what other marvelous, magical, and miraculous manifestations await me in 2010. I await in awe and expectation.

--Vicky Lynn :o)


Magical Miracle Manifestation Box
Idea courtesy Denise Linn
Collage and Artwork Copyright © 2010 Vicky Lynn Macchione