I’ve always admired assemblage art. I just love the complexity of these art pieces and how much content and meaning they combine into one cohesive art piece. I finally tried my hand at one, and as it took shape I noticed the theme of cats and owls emerge.

Assemblage art took form in the early 1900’s and in the 1950’s French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the term. Assemblage art embraces the idea of giving found objects new meaning. It aims to spark one’s imagination – to create new objects or beings out of disparate individual pieces collected over time. Some of the components may be owned, some may be found on “treasure hunts” to thrift stores and some may be consciously sought out.

When I attempted this piece I first sought out a frame or “container” for the components of the piece. The piece I found was the bottom half of an old wooden box. I removed the hinges, creating two wooden frames. It was already a nice vintage red. Used toys are a great source of wooden objects for any assemblage. Think tinker-toys, building blocks, wheels. Also look for vintage games, anything that contains old cardboard or wood pieces. Scrabble games, chess pieces, pegs or dominoes add dimension. I go through the aisles of Good Will looking for metallic pieces in the kitchen, garden or jewelry sections and reimagining them.

Once you have a good collection the fun begins; preparing pieces by painting or sanding and starting the process of arranging pieces until a theme starts to emerge. This piece took me several days of assembling and tearing apart until I found my theme. Go ahead and give one a try, it’s really quite therapeutic!