Camel Taste It All: Brandi Stickland Article

It began with a love of vintage magazines and grew into a hobby that became a means of creative expression. It’s called “collage art,” and nearly everyone can relate to it, but few have taken it as seriously as Brandi Strickland.

“Collage art is like doing a puzzle – there is a lot of bigger-picture thinking involved,” Strickland says. Common materials include stacks of magazines, newspapers, acrylic paints, pens, books, antique papers and, of course, plenty of glue sticks.

Considered a mixed media artist, Strickland likes nothing better than to sit on the floor of her rural North Carolina studio cutting and pasting to build layers of images on top of one another. The process of arranging and rearranging is soothing to her and has always served as a release and an inspiration. Yet, even she didn’t think that it would become her life’s work.

“In the academic environment there are people that believe using other people’s images is stealing someone else’s work, and that the discipline isn’t legitimate enough to be a true work of art,” Strickland says. “Early on there were horror stories about people getting sued because some people think that we borrow too heavily from other artists.”

In art school she was encouraged to practice other, more traditional art forms including oil painting, drawing, photography, ceramics and print making. These other mediums expanded her artistic ambitions, but she always longed to pursue her true passion.

“Collage art wasn’t a real medium, and wasn’t considered a high art,” she says of the way her chosen profession was perceived. “Art school gave me the opportunity to experiment and spend time in all the different studios, but I always returned to working in the collage style.”

Contemporary artists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso are credited as the founders of collage art, which is considered a form of cubism. In this age of multimedia, collage in many forms has become quite trendy, a fact that Strickland feels legitimizes her craft. After years of practice, her work stopped being simply cute and has developed depth and form.

“I like to use an acrylic medium that is similar to a decoupage effect,” Strickland says. “I can build up a lot of layers that way.”

Her work has been displayed at Glitch Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee, and is featured in the coffee table book, “The Art of Collage.” In addition to her own art, she manages a website called Paper Whistle, which highlights the collaborative efforts of collage artists worldwide.

Literally bringing together many of her passions into one creative outlet, Brandi Strickland found a way to make a career out of something she truly loves. Each day she’s excited to collect new pieces for her next collage, sift through them and figure out new ways to make them into her art.

“I work on a small scale, either on the floor of my studio or at my desk,” she says. “I find it soothing and it really relaxes me!”