Episode 4: Cathryn and Collage

What happens when a graphic designer, business coach, and art lover commits to making one collage every single day for a year?

Cathryn Lloyd is a Brisbane-based creative facilitator, coach, and collage artist with a background in graphic design from the Queensland College of Art. As founder of Maverick Minds, she helps teams think more creatively through what she calls “artful inquiry” — bringing arts-based approaches into business environments. In this episode, she talks to Melanie about the hobby that keeps her sane: collage.

In 2022, Cathryn committed to making one postcard-sized collage every single day for a year, using only materials she already had at home — a constraint she embraced wholeheartedly as a self-described “brickler” who loves making do with what’s at hand. Each piece was accompanied by a short written story, capturing life as it unfolded: the Brisbane floods, beach flotsam, even the guilt of buying avocados in plastic netting. By the halfway point the body of work had taken on a life of its own, and in 2023 she held an exhibition of all 365 pieces to a wonderful public response. The project also fed directly into her professional life — she’s since turned her collage imagery into facilitation and coaching card decks used with corporate teams.

Cathryn and Mel also explore why adults forget how to play, the meditative joy of cutting and tearing paper, and the quietly booming world of collage (yes, World Collage Day is a thing). If you’ve ever thought about trying a creative hobby but kept putting it off, this episode is a warm and practical nudge to just start. 

Connect with Cathryn:

• Website:  maverickminds.com.au 
• Instagram: @maverickminds1 and @cathrynlloydart.

Mel Loy is a storyteller, community enthusiast, and host of this insightful exploration into the power of individual passions. She’s dedicated to highlighting stories that connect people and inspire action.

You can connect with Mel on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Do you have a weird or wonderful hobby, or do you know someone who does? Then get in touch! Email hello@cuttlefish.group.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Wait, You Do What? The show where we unearth some of the weird and wonderful hobbies of the people in our communities. I'm your host, Mel Loy. I'm recording this on the lands of the Yaver and Terrible People here in the Engine, Brisbane. And I love sharing stories. So sit back, relax, enjoy, and laugh, and maybe be a bit inspired by some of the hobbies our guests share with us on this show. Let's get into it. Hi Catherine, welcome to the show. Oh well, thank you. It's lovely to be here. I'm excited. I'm excited to chat to you because you are the first person on the show so far to have this particular hobby, so I'm excited. But before we get into that, please tell us a bit about you.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

What's there to tell? Okay, um, I have a background in the arts. Um I um went to the Queensland College of Art and I trained as a uh graphic designer originally, and um, but I've always had an interest in the arts ever since I was a kid. So um I can remember, you know, having lots of paints. My parents were very good at supplying me with some materials, you know, large rolls of paper and and poster paints and things like that. And I could spend a lot of time just hanging out and just splashing stuff around, being my, I don't know, thinking I was Jackson Pollock or something, I don't know, whatever the case might be. But yeah, so um, so that um and my very early career started at the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service, actually. And I um started there as a uh a very, very young uh drawing office assistant and went into the graphic design unit and just met a whole bunch of interesting people, um, you know, the designers, photographers, the rangers. I it was just such a I loved it there. It was a really great place to start a career. And then, you know, various things happened along the way. And um, but that's that's work-wise. And then personally, I am married, I have a lovely partner husband, and uh we have a pretty nice time and we live here in Brisbane together. I moved overseas um because he's originally from the UK, so I moved overseas for a number of years um to uh because I was wanting to go overseas and also to give our relationship a bit of a crack and to see how it would work. And many, many years later we're still together, so it it it has actually worked. That's a good sign, yeah, indeed. So tell us about your day job. My day job is that I have my own business, and my business is called Maverick Minds, and uh it's a uh creative development, team development, coaching facilitation service. I work with all sorts of people uh using creative facilitation processes methodologies to help people to work well together. I'm particularly interested in creativity and innovation. So my background in the arts, I really try to bring into the work that I do. And uh I have a I guess a meth methodology that I've been working with for some time now and starting to really uh uh articulate it more. And uh it it it's the notion of artful inquiry. So it's about how to use the arts and artful ways of working to be able to gain insight and new perspectives and to experiment and and to try different things to be able to get a different outcome from maybe traditional sort of linear processes and which can be useful um, you know, in certain models and things like that. But I guess I I'm very interested in what are other ways of working that might help activate people in different ways and enable them to think differently about what it is that they do, A, for themselves and B for the people around them. So yeah, I um it's very eclectic work. Um, and uh it varies depending on who I'm working with.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, I bet. And you've also got your PhD, you've written some books as well. So spend a lot of time in the business world, I guess, even with that arts lens on it. So tell us about your hobby. What gets you away from the computer screen, away from the the office and the boardrooms?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Yeah, so it's uh well it is about making art. And when I'm not making art, I know I feel very I start to get a bit agitated actually. If I'm not creating and making, I do start to feel a little bit agitated. But my medium that I love to use and work with is collage, and uh it's become I guess the medium that I really feel drawn to, and there was a real catalyst for me in terms of starting back. So I've always done my arts practice, but you know, having my business, you know, that that that takes a lot of energy and time and things like that. And and I I would say, oh, my art is important to me, but I didn't really get to it. And so bits and pieces here and there, uh, but I decided in 2022 that I was going to make a real commitment back into my arts practice, and so I decided to make an artwork a day, and so that became my 365-day project, and the idea was to make one artwork a day, it had to be done on the day, it didn't matter what time in the day, but just on that day. And it was, and I really had to work hard at kind of giving myself some constraints around it, you know, like about time and things like that. So I landed on also a size because I thought if I go and if I because I've got a studio at home, lovely little studio space, and I thought if I have to go and think about what size this piece of art is, that alone is a huge decision-making thing. And so I thought, well, I'm just gonna make it the same size. So I was rummaging through some postcards and found some really old postcards that my grandfather had sent family from Malta. Oh, cool. I was looking at these postcards and I thought, that's it, postcard size, that's where I'm going. So they became 365 postcard size collages. And I started posting about it and you know, putting it on, you know, Facebook and Instagram. And each one has a st each one had a story as well. So I'd write a story that was associated with it. Might be an observation, reflection, um, comment, you know, whatever it was, just using materials. And people would start saying, Oh, oh, um, like, oh, that's really interesting, or I really I like that, or just some comments here and there. And then, well, when are we going to see this? Are you going to have an exhibition and all of those sorts of things? And it's like, well, I hadn't really started the project to have an exhibition, but about halfway through, I thought, well, there's a lot of work here, and in a way, it deserves to be seen. So I thought, well, let me let me just sit with that for a little bit longer. And so in the end, I decided to have an exhibition. So I had an exhibition of all three 65 artworks in 2023, and the response was really amazing. It was incredibly affirming. Um people were coming back time and time again, and they were fascinated. And I think the stories really resonated for people, you know. I think it was it was the artwork, and they were, you know, taken with the artworks for sure. And I think it was also the story, and and I think people could relate to the stories that were there, and so people would say, Oh, I remember what I was kind of doing on that day, or because the visual represented what was going on. So when we were having the flood, say in Brisbane, there was a lot of work during that time. It was around water and image, you know, things like that. So people were saying, This is a Brisbane story, you know, like these are really kind of so that was really interesting. And and then various things have sort of happened from there. So the project, in a way, is kind of like the gift that keeps on giving.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Because other things have happened from it. That's really cool. So, why collage though? Oh, I just well, there's a few reasons why collage. Um, I I like working with different materials. Um I love cutting, it's one of the things that I love doing is cutting. I find it incredibly um meditative, and so there's obviously some sort of therapeutic quality going on there. So I I love sitting there and cutting things. Um, but I tear as well. So, you know, I'll tear things, but the I do really enjoy cutting. Uh, I like bringing materials together, so I like the curation side of it. So that project that I did, the um 365, one of the constraints I gave myself was that I had to work with materials that I already had. So I wasn't, I couldn't make excuses and go, well, I don't have this, therefore I can't make. It was like, you've got loads of material. You've been collecting materials forever and ever. Because I'm like a bowel bird, you know, collecting materials. And uh I call myself a brickler. So making do with what's at hand, and it's like you talk about this, so now walk the talk, you know, like make do with what you've got, and you just start pulling out of your studio what you have to make with what you have, and so it's it's like the curation of all of those materials and going, well, how do I put this together? And what have I got? And so you kind of notice things, it's a real kind of noticing process as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

So yeah, there's a range of things, and then you know, it's it's reusing these materials that so often would just end up in the recycling bin or not even there, in the landfill, um, as well. And and that was one of my questions, too. Where do you find all these materials?

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Oh, collecting. Um, you know, I've collected stuff over years. I mean, particularly paper, you know, paper, and I I not that I'm a hoarder, so please don't get me wrong. I don't have some sort of hoarding problem, although my husband might think otherwise. Um, and and this is the thing about artists, and particularly collage artists, we'll kind of maybe we're in denial that we're actually hoarders, really. Um, but we always say, you know, every material is a resource. And it is, and and that's the thing actually, if you think about it, like you think about the resources that we have and how much is kind of, as you say, goes into landfill and is wasted and and what have you. So um I don't I I do keep quite a few things, and I grew up with parents who were very on that. So you didn't tear up the wrapping paper or the Christmas paper, you had to fold it neat. Um, you know, don't just tear it apart. That was my grand. Well, my parents are a lot, they were a lot older. So I kind of have the I had sort of parents who probably should have been my grandparents, really. So they they are of a time that you know, you that everything was precious. And so I grew up in that sort of environment where it's like you just don't go wasting stuff and we can reuse that and what have you. Um, so I've got a lot of things that I've carefully kind of, you know, um not torn apart. So that um, and then just various things that have sort of that I've seen along the way, and you know, kind of think, oh, that'll be an interesting thing to use somewhere down the line, I'm sure, and uh stick it in a little box and you know what have you. So and then you know, even the tiniest little pieces sometimes you go, wow, that's an interesting little piece, and how that might come back in and be used from sort of that size to kind of something that's a whole lot bigger. That's awesome. And what do you enjoy about it? What makes it fun for you? I think it's not I think it's in a way not knowing what what's going to happen. So there's there's a really emergent from well for me, and it and it's interesting because some people probably do plan a lot more. My work is much more emergent, so you know, I'll I'll start with something and not really be sure where it's going to go. And you know, in that sort of tearing sort of aspect of materials, even, you might start tearing and go, Oh, I've torn in a blaze where I probably shouldn't have torn, or what have you. So then you work with what what's there, and so I think it's I think it's uh something about the that uncertainty and unknown and allowing things to emerge, having an idea, but also being able to let go of that and work with what's actually coming coming back to me in a way. What's the weirdest thing you've ever used in a collage? Well, I you know, I when I go to the beach, I kind of pick up bits and bobs and things along the way. So I guess there's some sort of beach materials and and and things that sort of have you know been part of it. And you know, over Christmas I um I did more of that. And there were a couple of people walking along the beach and they had little cups and they were collecting things. I thought, I bet I know what they're collecting. And um, so I went over and had a chat with them. And of course they had little bits of plastic, you know, in cups. And so they every day they walk the beach and they're picking bits and pieces up, and they say, We do what we can do. So I was picking up sort of pieces, and so I've got a collection of this, I guess, ephemera, flotsam and jet jetson that you know have that land on the beach, which is quite tragic, really, actually. Um so a lot of a lot of my materials, I guess, in some respects, I think about a recycling and upcycling. So there was a few themes that I did around environmental um invo you know, the environment and and then using things like netting. So one of the artworks I did was uh about I'd got I'd I'd gone to buy some fruit vegetables and I'm pretty on you know trying not to get too much packaging and things like that. But I picked up this bag of avocados one day and I came home and I suddenly went, I I bought a bag of avocados with that green nylon packaging around it. Why did I do that when I could have bought loose avocados? And I was I was quite annoyed with myself actually. And so I used that in one of the artworks and and I had sort of underwater sort of imagery and wrapped the that sort of netting around it, you know, as a sort of commentary about this is you know, all these animals that are underneath here get caught up in all this netting that you know that we have. And so, yeah, I guess that it's those sorts of things that will make an appearance um in the artwork at various points in time.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Let's have a quick chat about the origins of collage. The word itself, as you may have guessed, comes from the French word collar, which means to stick together or to glue. Specifically, it derives from the French term papiers collères or decoupage, used to describe techniques of pasting paper cutouts onto various surfaces. One of the most famous collage artists was none other than Pablo Picasso, alongside Georges Braque. Now back in the early 1900s, it's said that Braque was walking through the streets of the French town of Avignon when he saw a particular pattern of wallpaper in a shop. Long story short, he bought some, started experimenting by cutting and gluing pieces onto large sketches. He then shows it to his mate Picasso, who begins dabbling with some cut and paste himself, and the rest is history. Picasso is said to have created almost a hundred collages in a very short period, working with paper, text, pieces of cloth and even instruments. Now, even though Picasso and Brack make collage popular in the modern day, the art form itself goes way back. For example, there's 10th-century calligraphy in Japan and gold leaf panels in Gothic cathedrals and more that are all considered types of collage. In 2019, the National Galleries of Scotland held a massive exhibition called Cut and Paste 400 Years of Collage, which included 250 works on paper with the oldest dating back to 1573. If you keen, the National Collage Society in the USA holds an annual exhibit of collage, while there's also Collage K-O-L-A-J Fest in New Orleans, which is a multi-day festival and symposium, and it's being held in June this year. Fun fact, collage once landed two lovers in jail in a tragic tale of whoa. In 1959, Joe Orton and Kenneth Pallerwell began stealing books from Islington Library in London. Once they had the books, they'd removed the big full-page images in them, which were known as art plates. And they would either create alternative dust jackets for other books with those images, which they would then return to the library shelves to confuse other patrons, or they would paste them directly into a large collage they had started on a wall in their one room to flat, which was nearby. But after pulling the stunt with hundreds of books, they were eventually caught. And in 1962, they were tried on charges of larceny, molest damage, and willful damage. They were sentenced to six months in prison. Although there have been claims the sentence wouldn't have been as harsh if they weren't gay. Sadly, the tale has a tragic ending. After prison, Halliwell continued with collage and in 1967 he staged his first and only exhibition. But later that year, he killed his lover and then died by suicide. But today you can go to the Islington Museum, where 43 of the library book covers The Men Defaced can be found, along with one of Halliwell's collages from the 1967 exhibition. Anyway, back to a happier conversation with Catherine. Tell me about the collage community. Is there a collage community? How do we find them? They're everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

They're hiding in the corners and they're coming out. They're all coming out now, you know. I think the collage officer is having their day of coming out. I think collage is having having a real movement, actually. And there is something called the World Collage Day, which, Mel, as we know, it is tada. Happy World Collage Day, everybody. Happy World Collage Day, everybody. Um, and that that World Collage Day uh was uh developed, put forward by an organization called the Collage Institute. And so they have they do they do a lot of thinking around collage and how collage can be used for communication, um, for you know, really like critical thinking and things like that. So, you know, at the very uh one part of their thinking and work is incredibly um, I don't know, it's really thoughtful. It is about critical thinking. You know, they'll they'll look at um collage in terms of um critiquing societal um issues and and things like that. So there's a whole bunch of stuff like that. And then you've got collage makers who just love putting beautiful things together and creating, you know, beautiful sort of coloured imagery, um, experimenting with different things. So if you go onto Instagram and put in collage or you just do a search for collage, you're gonna find a lot of a lot of um uh things around collage. But today I was actually out at Dayburgh, uh, which is just north of Brisbane, and there's a gallery there called the churn room, and the churn room has uh a collage exhibition on at the moment called Cut and Paste, and so they're celebrating collage. So, you know, there's lots of places now that uh you can um, you know, be with like-minded people and collage to your heart's content, either collectively or you know, in your own little space and things like that. And I think what's nice about collage in some respects is that you you can kind of do it on the run. So when I was doing my 335 project, I would just take a few pieces of material with me. If I was traveling for work or, you know, we went, you know, on a holiday to Tasmania, I took some materials with me. And you can do some basic sort of collage work while you're on the go as well. So it was yeah, a nice thing to be able to do to capture different things in different locations, really.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

I think there's probably some parents out there saying, Catherine, please be quiet. We bring home enough stuff. Probably, probably, no doubt, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Totally, totally, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Now, speaking of which, what would you say to somebody who's interested to just give collage a try? Where would they start?

SPEAKER_01 21:42

I would just I would just get online and have a little look and see what comes up. And then if you're interested, is I mean, seriously, the at the very foundations is to collect things that you're interested in, just a few pieces of different sorts. Materials that might resonate for you. So it might be a picture out of somewhere and another picture from somewhere else. It might be a colored piece of paper, it might be something thrown out that you see, whatever it is, and put yourself together a little kit of materials, a pair of scissors, a glue stick, and some nice quality paper. And you can start to kind of play with composing and putting pieces together. So it can be incredibly experimental and abstract, or it can be more representative and more realistic. You know, it will really depend on, you know, the person and what have you. But I would just start with, you know, getting some pieces of paper and kind of tearing things, cutting a few things, and just playing with putting things down and composing some things and seeing seeing what comes back to you, really.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

I think we the word play that you use there kind of jogs something for me because I feel like when we become adults, even teenagers, we forget how to play and just experiment with the world around us and just, you know, have play for play's sake, just have fun. And I do feel like it's such a mindful thing as well that we've lost that in becoming the, you know, gotta make money to pay bills, you gotta 20 million things on your stew list. You if you've got kids, you're responsible for getting them to five million places at the same time and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

We forget how to play. Yeah, totally. I think and play is such an important it it every animal plays, you know, like it is a really important sort of um element in in our lives. And I think if we're not playing or we forget to play, life does become very, very serious. And it's kind of like, is that all there is? You know, is you know, paying the bills and the to-do list. Well, what else is there? So to me, it's something about creating and making and not just being a consumer. And I think the other thing is that with I I I really like there's there are collage artists that do digital collage. I don't, that's not my thing. Um, I like the tactile, you know, working with the materials, as I said, cutting, tearing, you know, feeling the material, putting it down, pushing it around and things like that. And there are some times where ultimately the commitment is there and you've just got to run with it too. And so you can't just keep sometimes changing it. Like, I mean, you can always build over a collage. That's the interesting thing. You can, you can change it. But it, you know, once you stick something down, if it's stuck for a period of time, it's kind of stuck. You can't just kind of click and move it away and things like that. So I think there's something for me about too that uh that that you know, being with the materials and not being on screen and getting away from the computer as well. And and also using our hands, you know, that dexterity of using other than scrolling. Other than scrolling, and yeah, you know, you talk about sort of like play and things like that. Well, people are you know, that people aren't learning to write, you know, people are forgetting how to write. And writing is a really big part of our creativity, uh, uh the way how we think, make sense of things. So, you know, I I'd even say, you know, with your collars, you could just, you know, scribble and you know, get things down and then cut those um lines up or those drawings or whatever mark making, whatever mark making you do, and play with it and see what happens if I put that with that. What does that look like? Or how do I make sense of that? Or why am I drawn to that material? And so I think then we we're not just yeah, we're not just consumers and scrolling. We're um we're actually actively involved in creating and making.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, that's really cool. Um, I've got two more questions. The first one is when you tell people that you do collage as a hobby, what kind of things do they say?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

It'll either be what's collage if people don't know, and they'll go, or or they'll go, Oh wow, oh that sounds great, fantastic. Tell me more about what you do and you know that sort of thing. So um I think you know, most people uh but I as I said, I think collage is having its time, it's a movement. So I think people are more uh I think they're more aware actually of uh the world of collage.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Which is great. We're in the era of collage. I love I love this for us. That sounds like a great era. Last question. What skills have you learned from collage that you could apply to or you have applied to other areas of your life?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Well, you know, I I do bring in the collage in in the work in the other work that I do, you know, with Maverick Minds and teams and things like that, I'll often use images that I've created to um in presentations and things like that. But the other thing is I've actually created um, so this is a this is a tangible sort of outcome of you know the collage work. I've created like facilitation and coaching cards. So I'm just holding those up so you can see. Oh yeah, that's good. There's there's cards that I use as, you know, prompts and things like that for storytelling and introduction cards and things like that. And people love, love working with them. They're very layered and again, they they're quite tactile, and people like holding the cards. But I've actually been creating uh digital uh facilitation and coaching cards and using the collage imagery as digital form so people can get them on their phone. And so I can work virtually with people and they can have them on their phone and I can bring them up on the screen, and we can do group work and teamwork and things like that as well. So that's that's kind of like a tangible outcome. But the other, I guess the the ways of being, in a way, for me, are things like that curation and composition and looking and observing and noticing and the improvising, I think that happens. So that capacity to kind of improvise and allow for what's emerging and to kind of go in and maybe have a bit of a plan, but also let go of that plan or um or be really deliberate about that plan and go, well, actually, you know, I'm really going to be very focused on how this sort of happens. So it, you know, there's a whole range of things. I think it's and it's the storytelling as well, um, visual sort of storytelling that I think is incredibly useful. Uh, and sense making, really. You know, it's a way that I kind of can help, you know, make sense of the world. And certainly that 365 project. I would go into the studio sometimes and have no idea what I was going to do. And I just stand there sometimes and think, well, there's that just nothing at the moment. There's just nothing. Doing no work. It's like, where is this idea going to come from? And it was like trust the process. So I would literally be with my little postcard size card, and I'd just look around at material sometimes, and then all of a sudden a colour would catch my eye, or a word, or something like that, and I'd think that's it. I and then I'd find my way into it. So I think it's a little bit about trusting the process as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

That sounds like a good place to end. Catherine, thank you so much for joining us on the show. If people wanted to get in touch with you, chat more about the work you do or the collage, what's the best way for them to find you?

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Uh well, they could go to my website, which is maverickminds.com.au. So m-a-v-e-r-i-c-k-m-in-d s dot com.au. Um, I do have an Insta, a couple of Instagram accounts. So there's Maverick Minds One or Catherine Lloyd Art, which is C-A-T-H-R-Y-N, Double L O Y D Art. Um, so that's where I'm kind of putting my art. The course of the collage work and arty stuff. And Maverick Minds is kind of like the business side of things, but um, yeah, or LinkedIn. I mean, of course, is the other one. So yeah, yeah, that's always a good one too. So very happy to talk to people about collage and and also creative work and you know how you can be sort of more creative with your teams as well, and how collage might actually help you do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

It might actually be a good team building session. Oh, it's a great idea. It's a great idea. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Catherine, again, for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Thanks, Nelly. Thank you for the invitation, and I love this podcast. I think it's great. And I I I think you're going to have some really, really interesting guests on your podcast and lobbies.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Well, we've got a few coming up as well that are, as I said, they're interesting. That's why they're here. So it's great. I love it. It's good fun. I'm looking forward to listening to them all. Thank you.