The Artistic Misadventures: Mishap With Modge Podge

On a beautiful spring afternoon I came home from my poetry class feeling inspired.  I was in the middle of making an Alice in Wonderland collage and had been slowly and carefully cutting out old illustrations from various Alice in Wonderland/Through The Looking Glass scenes, and thoughtfully organizing them in a colorful, busy paper world.  I finally figured out how I would like my scene arranged, complete with different layers popped into the foreground to create depth, but I hadn't figured out what to do for a background until I was driving home in my 1973 VW microbus "Bubbles."  I was struck with inspiration — The background should be playing cards, of course!

I raced home at breakneck speed (20MPH) and set up at the kitchen table with a pot of Modge Podge, a deck of cards, and all my little paper cut-outs of Alice in Wonderland characters.

In my creative whirlwind I hadn't bothered to change out of my day clothes (a flowing skirt and billowing blouse, of course!), but that didn't matter, because I almost never (almost always) make messes.  Why, if I can go a whole day without getting glue or paint in my hair or on my clothes I consider this a success.

At a leisurely pace I coated the background where I would soon be plastering cards down.  I was taking my time, because I so enjoy the sensation of creativity — I wanted to drag it out for as long as possible.

Alas, my spatial awareness must have been a bit off that day.  Many key indicators of the catastrophe soon to come were before my very eyes, but I was blithely ignoring them: the open jar of Modge Podge placed precariously at the edge of the table, the smooth unblemished fabric of my skirt just tempting fate to spill something on it, and the wild movement of my elbows as I brushed glue on my canvas.

When my elbow connected with the jar of Modge Podge time suddenly slowed down.

“Oooooh Nooooo!” I exclaimed, but just like in the movies my words were slowed down and garbled.  It was as if the jar had a face, and kept fear-filled eye contact with me as it slowly descended to the ground flailing its little imaginary arms.  Upon impact the jar seemed to flinch as Modge Podge exploded into the air and for a moment hovered weightless before time clicked into real speed and the Modge Podge landed all over my clothes, my hair and the kitchen floor.

My plans for a leisurely afternoon of gluing stuff to stuff were interrupted by a new consideration — the race against time to use the Modge Podge before it dried on the floor, in my hair and on my clothes.

I knew what I had to do and I didn’t like it.  The Modge Podge on the floor needed to be on my canvas, and there was only one way to get it there.

I grabbed up the cards.

I knelt on the floor.

One by one I slathered each card by rubbing them around in the pile of Modge Podge, coating as many of them as quickly as possible and then quickly slapping them down onto the collage.

Forget about brushes!  I didn't have time for that! 

I lamented the stray strands of dog hair and specks of dirt working their way into the collage.  My hands were dirty now anyway, having rubbed them all over the floor to try to scoop as much Modge Podge as possible off the floor and back into the jar.

When I had utilized as much of the floor spill as possible I began to use cards to scrape the Modge Podge off my clothes and rang out my hair onto the collage.

What was going to be so carefully calculated and done with precision had been accomplished in under five minutes.

With the background settled and drying, I stood still for a moment catching my breath and taking in the mess around me — and the mess that was me.  I had to decide what clean-up took priority — I decided on my clothes.  I ran to the laundry room and threw my Modge Podge soaked clothes in the washer and crossed my fingers, then scurried back to the kitchen to see to the now-glossy tiles.  Finally I recruited a bottle of dish soap to work on washing the dry Modge Podge from my hair.

The end result, regardless of the road to completion, was exactly how I envisioned it.

This article first appeared in The Noise.