Surprise!

For the last few days, I’ve been up to my elbows in paper. Literally.

I recently invited members of my Art Tribe to send me some of their collage scraps, and wow — they delivered. Envelopes and parcels have been arriving for days, filled with vintage book pages, maps, painted offcuts, hand-made papers, and all kinds of unexpected treasures. 

Opening them was only the beginning. Next came the task of sorting and organising, which is when something surprising happened.

As I sifted through the stacks, I found myself instinctively pulling out pieces that spoke to me. A certain colour, a mark, a bit of texture — nothing particularly “special,” but something about each one just clicked. Without really thinking about it, I started pinning them to the wall.

And then I kept going.

Soon the wall looked like something out of a detective show — a sprawling collage of scraps, arranged into colour stories and loose visual links.

“Ooh, that blue sings next to the orange.”

“What happens if I drop the green dots lower?”

“Wow, that pink! It belongs right there.”

There was no plan and no outcome in mind - just pure play. And despite the heat and the humidity, I lost myself in it for hours.

The pieces I chose weren’t “better” than the rest — they were just the ones that stirred something in me. I noticed that I was drawn to accidental marks, bold shapes, and colours I hadn’t expected. The whole process felt like a quiet nudge from my creative self saying: "This. This is where we’re heading!"

A small samping of my studio wall... 

And that’s the part I want to share with you today. 

When I began pinning papers to the wall, I wasn’t trying to start a new series. I wasn’t trying to “do anything,” really. I just wanted to keep a few favourite scraps visible. But as the wall grew, the ideas started sparking.

Before long, I was playing with small compositions on A4 sheets of paper. I haven’t glued anything down yet — I want to keep the possibilities open — but suddenly, there’s a new body of work emerging.

A new beginning I didn’t plan for.

Two small collages ...

What’s really lighting me up is the sense of surprise. Many of these scraps came from other people, and their choices of colour and texture have shaken up my usual preferences. They’ve brought something new into the room. Something unexpected.

I did add one piece of my own — a torn book page with tiny black crosses — but almost everything else came from the contributions of others. It feels collaborative, even though the work is still deeply personal.

And because it happened through instinct and curiosity, I have no interest in taking control of the process now. I don’t want to overthink or “improve” anything. That would be a surefire way to shut it all down.

So I’m staying with the not-knowing. I’ll keep sorting; I’ll keep listening; and I’ll keep following these quiet surprises wherever they want to go.

Which brings me to my question for you this week: Where could you invite more surprise into your process? Could you switch up your materials? Work in a new space? Could you simply start something without knowing where it’s going?

You don’t have to make a masterpiece. You just have to start — and stay curious enough to see what shows up. Maybe you'll be as surprised as I have been!