I finally tried out something I've been dying to do. A month (or more?) ago, I dragged my amazingly willing partner
out in the snow for some photos. As usual, I had something really specific in mind. Inspired by my favorite song, which is
"Snow is Falling in Manhattan by Purple Mountains." I have such a fun relationship with this song, and I highly
recommend that you go give it a listen or add it to your winter playlist rotation before the cold weather
fully leaves us. I discovered this song at the start of winter 2022. It immediately created a stunning visual in my
mind - more than a typical winter wonderland, but a purple swarm of flurries around light posts, dimly lit streets
filled with crunching snow. And something somber, but also something deeply welcoming, as the artist sings:
Inside he's got a fire cracklin'
And on the couch, beneath an afghan
Lies an old friend he just took in
Seeking shelter from the cold wind
He changes that lyric up again in the last verse, which you can see in one of my collage's. But you should really listen to it
yourself and savor the moment he invites you into the song. I had also did some reading on the artist, David Berman. He was in
the the band 'Silver Jews' in the 90s, and struggled with mental illness his entire life. I find his story really moving, and also terribly sad, and do warn
you that most of his other work on Purple Mountains can be hard to listen to (thematically. Musically, it's incredible.)
So... this song has really inspired me for a while. Though it's pretty definitively my favorite song, my own personal rules
of the seasons dictate I can only listen to the song from December to February/March (weather dependent). Hey, I don't make the rules!
Except I do. And I stand by them. I have favorite songs for every season and they have their own guidelines too! Anyway...
Once it finally snowed, I took some photos of Matt outside our apartment as the invisble sun sank and the world became
true blue. As usual, not quite what I envisioned, but I think putting them into collage form really helped me express
what I was trying to do. It's more than just the snow, it's the shimmer, the gold ebbing out the warm windows, the sparkle
in the trees, the strange closeness of winter even as the sky opens up and releases storms and whiteouts and closed roads.
I was able to use my arsenal of washi tape, gold stars, some stickers, and letter stamps to craft some of my favorite lyrics.
The color scheme is my favorite piece of this, with the flecks of gold throughout and the blues and purples creating something
that's somehow both melancholy, and warm, and familiar.
If you've never made a collage before, or haven't in a long time, I highly recommend it! Once I finally printed out the photos (using
literally all the ink in our printer lol) it really was fun to sit down, cut everything out by hand, and just start piecing things
together. Creatively I think I err on the side of 'winging it' sometimes, so I really didn't map out a design or anything. I just
jumped in. It was a pretty excellent exercise and the snow today motivated me to finally bring this to life before the season ends. Here's a few photos of the creation process.
