What usually takes about fifteen minutes to reach in “regular” toMAgo workshops had to wait for several weeks in this spring online workshop. Today, we will create our first toMAgo picture together!
To begin with, take a look at several petals and their possible names from the third day of the spring toMAgo workshop:
Try doing the same yourselves—photograph individual petals on a neutral (black) background, then look at them later and give them a name. All of a sudden, petals that were previously just tiny parts of a flower may become the “main characters” around which a future picture might be built.
This would be the first part of the story, so far untold, about what toMAgo really is—a chance for even the smallest, unnoticed things to be given the opportunity to reveal all the richness that, due to their tiny size, usually remains hidden from the eye.
Now that we have one petal, we can add a second or a third so that together they form a more complex structure. In this way, we create pictures with one main character and perhaps a small detail, or pictures in which several characters (usually two or three, and only rarely more) are in a vivid mutual relationship that can express love, care, anger, joy, jealousy, or some other emotion that two or three petals may evoke in the author or the viewer.
The characters in toMAgo pictures often lack certain parts, which we add in our imagination in order to “fix” them—much like we try to fix the world around us, which is what it is, full of imperfections, while we would like it to be perfect, at least by our own standards.
Likewise, characters in pictures often carry something—a candle, a gift, a bouquet of flowers… Who knows whom the gift is meant for and where the character with the candle is heading? Probably nowhere, because they cannot leave their frame and will forever carry that same candle in the same pose, in frozen time.
Finally—or at the beginning, if you prefer—there are floral motifs in which we simply create pictures of vases with flowers. Except that in these images the tiny flowers suddenly become large and rich, and the vase is replaced by an otherwise inconspicuous petal or another plant element.
Of course, there are also works in which a larger number of petals, arranged in a larger format, form images where the petals function primarily as vivid elements, skillfully assembled into beautiful floral collages.
That is no longer me, because such a form of creation presupposes a composition imagined in advance and its realization by assembling many elements, whereas “my” toMAgo is based on the moment and on association, followed only by slight adjustments to emphasize the experience or to convey the association to the viewer.
toMAgo is not a strict form that would limit the number of elements making up a picture, but in a way it resembles haiku poetry, in which a certain mood or association is conveyed with very few words (in our case, petals).
I will show you a process in which we assemble a kind of puzzle while working on several pictures at the same time. In the presentation, I work simultaneously with eight different background colors, which I do not usually do, but my goal was to show as many relationships as possible between background colors and petals. We simply play—looking for a petal that fits a picture or a picture that suits the petal we are about to place. I talk to the petals and the pictures, usually silently, and for the purpose of this video, out loud.
You will also see how to create an original puzzle in which you must reassemble a previously made picture using given petals.
I will also show a simple trick for making a miniature flower vase, and finally a small anecdote about how to create an abstract picture using the toMAgo process—one that can even end up in an exhibition!
A collage of images created through playful interaction with petals during the presentation.
Create your own (perhaps your first) toMAgo picture, give it a name, photograph it, and post it in the Facebook group “toMAgo radionice”. I believe you will be surprised by the expressiveness of the image you create and by its effect on the viewer.
Today I did not talk about imaginary characters, ballerinas, brides, animals, historical figures, or abstract compositions. But that will be another time.
Until then, warm greetings, and see you on Day 5 of the Spring toMAgo Workshop 2020!