Photo courtesy of Jocelyn Peller
Sunny Tian
Features Reporter
Newton South is known for nurturing many unique clubs. From environmental awareness clubs to identity clubs, science teams, and even Cheese Club, the smaller communities of these various groups at South help to build our welcoming and diverse community.
Recently, juniors Celia Chen, Sophie Nagarajan, Jocelyn Peller, and Natasha Nagarajan have started their own club at Newton South: collage club. Being given the opportunity to channel their inner artist, the founders are excited to expand their community and hope to share the love and joy of collaging with other students.
Art has always been a passion to many students starting from an early age, yet the hobby of collaging has grown throughout the past year in quarantine. “I started collaging over quarantine, and it’s really stress-relieving for me. I found that it’s a very fun activity,” said Peller.
Recently, collaging has become more popular and recognized with the help of social media. Chen explained that she “see[s] a bunch of videos on Instagram playing satisfying collaging videos and on Tik Tok, which helped [her] get into it.”
Nagarajan shared that she “never really had one medium that really stuck with [her]. But [when she] started a collage Instagram account, it all took off from there.”
With new advancements in technology, digital collaging has also gained popularity in the art community. “I think I’ve gotten really comfortable with digital collaging. I like how accessible it is because no one has to go out and buy magazines or make a mess. You can literally just do it on your phone or computer,” Nagarajan said.
As the members of collage club have begun to take advantage of all these online resources, Zoom meetings have been held to host club meetings. “At first, we did not know how to use Zoom because there’s a limit on time and everything, so we had some technical difficulties then. But as the club lasted longer, we figured out a way to make the meetings last longer and how to share sound or share screens,” Chen recalled.
Junior Martie Fairchild, a member of the collage club, mentioned, “On Zoom, [people] can’t share materials, but the distance and virtual aspect has just caused [them] to adapt.”
The club also experienced the “first-day awkwardness,” as most new gatherings do over Zoom. “Zoom is generally a pretty awkward place to be, especially when you’re doing art,” Nagarajan admitted.
Yet through all the obstacles and mishaps, the leaders continued to persist, reminding themselves of the goal and reason behind the club. “The purpose of this club is just to get together with friends and make art while listening to music and hanging out. It’s meant to help people destress, especially because it’s on Fridays during Flex block,” Peller claimed.
Nagarajan shared that collaging was never really taught in South’s traditional art classes, so the vision of her and the other co-founders was to create a club they wanted to be in that did not yet exist.
Building community is also an important aspect of the club. Fairchild shared that although she “wasn’t super close to a lot of the people in the club [in the beginning], they were very friendly, and the vibe was great… We just listen to music—we have a good playlist—and have some fun collaging after school. It’s a great way to decompress after a long week.”
“The community of this club is really fun because we all have a common interest in collaging and art. We love to share our work with each other, giving feedback, and just supporting each other during meetings. We have a notebook that we pass around to everybody in the club, and everybody gets to make a collage which is a really good team-building activity,” said Peller.
Weekly themes allow the members of Collage Club to broaden their creativity. Nagarajan explained that her favorite theme was self-portraits: “I just found it so fun to see how people would depict themselves through [a] collage.”
Chen recalls that her favorite collage included citruses and bright colors. “I really liked the pop of color because normally when you think of collaging, you think of scrapbooking or notebooking where it’s neutral tones. But that [piece] was a pop of color, and I really enjoyed looking at that,” she explained.
Peller and Fairchild both shared photos of their creative work, and each member continues to create new pieces. “I keep a journal that has most of my collages in them. The book is almost finished, and it is filled with the collages I’ve made over quarantine. I have a couple favorite collages,” said Fairchild.
Whether it’s for relaxation after a long week or time to chat with friends, Collage Club has become a center for students passionate about art. This past year, Collage Club has found its place in the larger Newton South community, and it is continuing to grow and reach out to more people. You can check out more fun artwork on their Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/nshscollageclub/. Maybe stop by one day—you might find your new passion.
