Today we’d like to introduce you to allison anne.
Hi allison, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My name is allison, and I’m a multidisciplinary artist & freelance graphic designer in Minneapolis, on unceded Očhéthi Šakówiŋ land. My primary concentration is handcut paper collage, which feels like a blend of so many fascinations going back to childhood.
I’ve always had an interest in the arts, and grew up dabbling in many mediums and projects. There were lots of art history books and creative materials in my childhood home because of my mom; history books and near-weekly museum visits of all kinds with my dad. I loved to read and to look – lots to absorb and learn. I loved drawing, reading and working on little projects. My mom recently gave me a box of paper dolls from my childhood – along with the commercially printed dolls, I found many handmade ones, some drawn, others cut and pasted from magazines, complete with home furnishings. Repurposing things and creating my own worlds always held a thrill for me.
By the time I started high school in 1999, home internet access had become more common, and I’d already been making my own graphics & web projects for a couple of years. The combination of expanded access to information and opportunities to create & share felt irresistibly boundless. I was fascinated with drawing and making physical things out of paper, but my lifelong interest in do-it-yourself projects and hands-on learning is certainly tied to this. To this day, I still keep in touch with online ‘art friends’ who I’ve known for more than 20 years.
As an adult, I started to find ways to bring creativity into my everyday life as I began a career in graphic design. I’m a self-taught graphic designer, going back to the mid/late ‘90s, with a degree in American Studies & Gender Studies from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. I graduated during the Great Recession of the late aughts, and work was hard to find. I started polishing up my design skills and looking for freelance opportunities, which eventually led to full-time work, and then to freelancing!
As my career in design grew over the years, I’ve found more of a space for my art practice. Learning new skills in my design career has propelled other aspects of my creative life forward, just as breakthroughs I make in paper collage, zinemaking and mail art impact my design work. Now, heading into my late 30s, it’s just one big messy, creative life!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
There have been plenty of twists and turns, sure! I’ve always had a rich internal life, but struggled with depression, anxiety and low self-confidence, especially around aspects of my identity as a queer, fat nonbinary person. In adulthood, I learned to navigate some of that differently, building trust in my own skills & abilities. It’s an unfolding process – the self-doubt is still there at times, and depression will always be a part of my life, but showing up to my creative practice every day is helpful. Collage is analogous to that process in a way – taking things apart, fitting them back together anew, reshaping things.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Though I’ve been working as a graphic designer for over a decade, the core of my art practice is handcut paper collage, which became my primary focus in 2017. I’m most known for my daily collage work and monthly zines. In 2021, I made over 400 new paper collages. It’s an enormous part of my life.
Collage is interwoven with many of my other interests and specializations, including mail art, graphic design, creative collaboration and building community. My years of experience with a regular art practice, project management and graphic design combine into an ability to develop projects very fully, tackling obstacles in creative ways and thinking through different approaches.
The work I’m most proud of is collaborative, including Twin Cities Collage Collective, a project that I’ve been involved with for the past few years. TCCC is focused on connecting artists through collage in inclusive ways, and providing resources and opportunities to those getting started in the medium. We got our start as a series of meetups in 2017, expanded when I met some other local collage artists such as Ben DiNino, Nate Stromberg and Scott Neff, and has grown into a vibrant local and global community as more folks have gotten involved. We seek to create a space for anyone to learn about and connect with the medium of collage. While we haven’t been able to have our in-person meetups for quite some time because of the pandemic, TCCC has found other ways to connect with our local, national and international community.
Recently, I’ve been releasing a variety of collage-based collaborative projects with the Massachusetts-based artist Jeremy P. Bushnell under the name MORPHIC ROOMS, which has been really exciting. Zines, process-based work, collaborative collages, a remixable deck of ‘collage cards’ meant for cutting up – it’s a wildly joyful collaboration. We’re also launching a project called NONMACHINABLE this winter, which will distribute zines and artist publications featuring collage, visual poetry, stamp art, mail art, asemic writing, and other optically interesting material from artists around the world.
I’m always interested in new opportunities and projects, be they collage-related or more along the lines of graphic design, project management and print production. I am also available for commissioned work or to consult or mentor folks regarding their own projects – feel free to get in touch! I’d love to chat!
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
It’s an exciting time to be involved in the world of collage. There’s a lot of renewed interest in it, and many have discovered it as a source of creative delight for the first time, or found it again. There are many more opportunities for collage artists than in years past – the overall view of the medium is shifting from being ‘outside’ of the structured art world. The overall community is hugely welcoming and supportive, and ready to encourage fellow artists to keep pursuing the aspects of their work that most interest them. I think this will continue in the coming years, with the medium continuing to be embraced as vivid, exciting and relevant in many contexts, including advertising, marketing, graphic design and the world of fine art.
Contact Info:
- Email: allisonannecollage@gmail.com
- Website: http://allisonanne.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/allisonannecollage
- Other: http://www.twincitiescollagecollective.com | http://www.morphicrooms.com | http://www.nonmachinable.com
Image Credits
Allison Anne
