Have you ever looked at a pile of discarded paper and wondered if it holds a secret?
For years, I've used a simple cross-cut paper shredder. At first, it was just utility: creating secure packing material or simplifying recycling. The documents go through the shredder and are transformed into uniform fragments—and begin to feel less like work and more like a preparatory ritual. It became a physical manifestation of clearing space, of making something nothing.
This post is a journey into what can happen when you use that 'nothing' to create something entirely new. It's not a quick craft; it's a slow, deliberate, meditative practice. The destination is not just the artwork, but the quiet center you find along the way.
Beginning without a map: Trusting in the process.
The journey begins before the first piece of paper is glued. The generic paper shreds turn into a controlled, uniform units of creation.
An exacto-blade is the chosen tool. I've taken the irregular, shredded paper and used this scalpel to place these tiny, precisely cut shards onto the board. This act of selecting from the chaotic pile, is a form of focus. It requires patience and a steady hand. A commitment of time and to process.
Then, one by one, using a small dot of glue, each placed individually. The repetitive action—select, cut, glue, place—becomes a rhythm. My breathing slows. The piles of loose paper represent the chaos, and my patterned grid represents the order I am creating, one piece at a time.
The Moment of Becoming
The next phase, and the most dramatic transformation, is a leap of faith. This matrix, this built-up texture, is not just a collage; it is a printing plate (a collograph plate).
This entire complex surface is then sealed in shellack and then inked—in this case, with a deep indigo blue-black ink. This is the moment where the 'nothing' (discarded paper) and the meticulously created 'something' (the matrix) are transformed into a singular, unified composition.
The individual paper tiles are no longer separate; they are unified by ink, pressed into the paper, creating the high-contrast pattern you see.
Final Reflections
In the final, framed piece, the complexity is overwhelming at first glance. But if you know the journey, you see the history.
The value of this kind of work isn't just the finished result, beautiful as it might be. The value is in the time spent. It’s in the deliberate slow-motion of cutting and gluing. It is a path where you start with a void and end with a complex, structured beauty. In the process, you may find that you, too, have been quieted, structured, maybe a little less rushed.
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