Inspirational Gluebook Artists - Connie Rose

I have a list of people whose work in collage art, particularly vintage collage art, really inspire me. In this post I want to share with you some of the amazing collage art of Connie Rose, and to share a bit about who she is, if you’ve never heard of her. 

This is part of a series of posts I am doing on inspirational artists. I wrote about Mary Green previously.

Who is she?

Instagram is a great place to discover new artists, and this is where I came upon Connie’s work some years ago. Over time, we’ve seen and commented on each other's posts, but I’ve always been curious to know more about her and what she finds inspiring and interesting. I reached out and contacted her, and she graciously agreed to answer a few of my questions. 

She’s a native Californian and has been creating in one form or another for over 50 years. Like many artists, she’s “dabbled” in so many things such as knitting, weaving, eco dying, beading, book arts, mixed media, and collage. The two forms she returns to most often however, are knitting and collage art.

I wanted to know what pulls her to collage art, and she said that because she feels she’s not good at drawing, using magazine images has been ideal in creating collages. Reading an older blog post of hers (Comfort zones and expectations: May 30, 2018), she said that she’s comfortable with collage. She explains a little more here:

Art, for me, has always been "something to do," a way to utilize my creative skills...but I've never felt compelled to make art, like "Make Art or Die."  For many people, art is what "saves" them, especially when they're going through difficult times in other domains of their lives.  It's not that way for me -- I need to be feeling good inside in order to push forward with art. What I'm really comfortable with is collage, so that's where my creative energy is focused these days.

She, too, finds inspiration on Instagram. Before Instagram was as popular as it is now, inspiration came from reading blogs from others. She has maintained her own blog for 10+ years.

Why her art is special

An important part of collage art is the papers, of course. Connie’s collages are amazing to me because of several things. First, it’s the color palette. Connie has an amazing eye for choosing images that color complement each other. Sometimes the images share almost identical colors, and sometimes there are two or three shades of a color to mix and play with. Her use of color is simply amazing.

Second, is the number of paper pieces she fits into a collage and how she layers them. Maybe because I have difficulty with placing more than 6 or 7 images in a collage, I am in awe of her ability to place ten to twenty, well chosen pieces that work in harmony. She balances everything so well, making the entire collage so cohesive.

Lastly, is the quality of the images she uses. She mentioned in another of her blog posts that she loves to sit in the evenings, fussy cutting out images, and placing them in her sorted collections. The images that she finds in books and magazines are wonderful. I can only imagine the treasure trove of images she must have :-)

How she inspires me today

First and foremost, Connie inspires me to play with color themes in collage art. My blue gluebook is partly inspired by her collage style. 

She is a prolific creator of collage art and gluebook pages. I love that consistency of collage art, but mostly I love that she is constantly creating any kind of art. When she is not collaging, she is knitting. Presently, she is knitting a collection of socks for local homeless women. How awesome is that!

Thanks, Connie, for sharing a bit about your collage art and creativity. Your collages will surely inspire people who are new to collage art, as well as continue to inspire people who have been creating collages for some time already. 

Just a few more images of her work for you to enjoy.