It began, as all journeys do, with a single step: the slap of a sandal against a bare, dusty heel; the tickle of a breeze (from the slap of a sandal) across the arch, the instep, like the tongue of a dog, hungry for sweat, or the lick of an ocean at play over the skin of swimmer. It began, like that, despite the absence of dogs and oceans. He walks, as does another (someone he doesn’t know, someone who also wears sandals,) and his destination remains unfixed, unseen, unrealized. His destination, as all destinations are, is a potential, and it is the journey itself that the grand, existential purpose. He walks… …through a maze of corridors and pipes, past the narrative of bricks and a window with one wood-boarded pane. There is a story his. His story. His story is simply that: a story, rife with truth and all of the poetic distinctions that obliterate the importance of facts. There are differences, after all…his is an emotional journey: a walk in sandals, through a realm of pipes and bricks, of arches and cracks, accompanied by the slap-slap, slap-slap of sandals marking his steps. * Collages are nothing new: there’s an entire gallery dedicated to them here on Renderosity. Other artists, here on Renderosity and abroad have created incredible, unexpected bursts of associative brilliance. The collage, as an art form, is a source of endless fascination for me, a source of endless entertainment. The collage, after the digital phase shift, is also…something else. No longer is the collage form relegated to sharp edges. Associations are now able to blend, dream-like, into one another. Characters from one photograph are able to “walk” seamlessly into other “photographs”; cable-carrying conduits, bearing the letters A-P-E-K-S, may migrate from the rear wall of a bookstore to…well…elsewhere. Windows and bricks may become…a sky, a thought, a poem, or nothing at all, and it is through the associations of the collage that such wonders may exist. I’ve been thinking of collages quite a bit, lately; there are plenty of them here, in galleries all across the land of Renderosty. Some are more traditional in form. Others are dream-like “multiexpositions” declaring themselves in Russian, when they use any words at all. Some are pseudo-Victorian fever dreams: rife with cunning humor and gentle wit. Still others are feints and jabs as photorealism, rendered with tongues poking firmly into cheeks. I like them all, and find that they possess an intriguing possibility in common. They are, or can be, vehicles for stories, poems, and even songs, all rendered without alphabetic notation (yes, musical notes, when written, are an alphabet of another sort.) I enjoy words, and the wealth of things they may convey, but there are times, when I see things, created by others (and occasionally by me) that strike the presence of words from my mind. They leave—in their place—the essence of something that might only ever be explained in terms of Zen, Yoga, or…in a few instances, an inarticulate, primal scream: not one of terror, but the scream of the ancient Egyptian god Ra, upon discovering that he’d just gone and created himself and was a wee-bit unsure of what to do next. The point is, he screamed, and by some mythical accounts, it was a scream of terror and shock, the scream of a newborn infant: the opening punctuation of all of existence. I feel like that at times, when viewing collages: an articulate thing bubbles and rumbles inside of me, marking the beginning of… …potential. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.