Custom Collage Commission: “Hello & Goodbye”
The process of creating a custom collage.
As far as collages go there are many sources of inspiration to choose from. For this particular collage I was commissioned to create a collage based around the song Hello & Goodbye by Rabbit!. The commissioner of the piece felt it reflected the season he is at in his life, as he is currently traveling for work a decent amount.
The idea of travel and this song rattled around in my brain until one afternoon I sat down and started to just create it.
Starting by thinking about the actual lyrics of the song, I spent some time just humming along…Hello & goodbye oh the time it can fly it’s farewell for a spell when I was just saying hi, man that went fast, now the future’s the past
These lyrics inspired the imagery heavily, and the poppy beat and change-up of the music inspired little pops of color rather than something drowning in color. A sophisticated subtlety, much like the band themselves, disguising reflection of thought and memory in a poppy, catchy tune. These pops of color, rather than complete saturation, also refer (again) to the feeling of man that went fast, now the future’s the past by giving memory & nostalgia a front seat and visually showing that our memories are always a little more dull than the actual moment.
When I was laying out the pieces for this collage, I loved the wire because it adds this kind of aspect of travel to it–reminiscent of the highways and cars traveling them. I wanted to play with some fun dimension inspired by the boppiness and catchiness of the song from the fun instrumentals, background voices and vocals. The line My heart skips a beat every time you up and leave is particularly fun and demonstrates how varied the song really is.
When choosing imagery I chose this black and white image to play in your nostalgia, and the western landscape to play in the future hope of new endeavors. The double perspective tunnel that the wire is creating makes it fun to bounce back and forth between new horizons and old ones. Where did everyone have to go? I don’t know it’s such a drag to be left out in the bag? What do I do with it? When will everyone finally stay?
The materials lend themselves to some innocence as well, leaning into the aspect of this youthful front Rabbit! seems to have. Using scraps of paper, cardboard, and fun dimensionality, it’s anything but an average interpretation of such an upbeat song. And while this isn’t probably an average take on the happy-go-lucky nature of this song, I think content wise it really shines. Creating a sophisticated type of play in dimension, material and sparing color to be used only in the mixture of distance and closeness. My heart shrinks a little bit, every time you gotta split–I guess it doesn’t shrink but under certain conditions–Hello & goodbye well the time it can fly
When putting the collage together one challenge I ran into was creating the seemingly floating bridge created by the wire. I used these scraps of paper to secure it to the back and ensure that they would stay in place.
When adding in the white background element I wanted to give another little play on perspective shifting with the angled bottom. The white made the pops of color, and wire stand out so that there was not a detail to be missed. Overall I think this piece was quite a success and gives a different and unexpected take on this song. man that went fast, now the future’s the past I’m always saying hello and goodbye
