Interview With Collage Artist of Living Feral

Here's my interview with Tracy, the fantastic Vancouver, BC artist behind Living Feral:, the etsy shop where she sells her work.

1) Your images look like they come from old magazines. Do you have a favorite source? Where do you find them?

Yes, I use pieces I cut from vintage magazines, and occasionally books. I prefer material from the 60s and 70s (nothing more recent) because I like the imagery and colors and print quality from that period. I usually find them scouting around thrift stores (one of my favorite activities). I use pretty much anything I can get my hands on, as it’s getting harder to find older materials - particularly magazines, since so many people throw them out.


2) Your titles are fantastic! How do you come up with them?

Thanks! I wish I had a magic formula, because it sometimes takes me longer to come up with the title than the collage (and I work pretty slowly anyway). Then I sit with the piece and play with word combinations until I find the one that makes the most sense to me. Other times though, I start with a word or phrase – a thought I’m having about something, or a fragment of text that’s stuck with me for years – and that will inform the title. Often I’ll work without any set ideas, and the title will come in a flash. My collage “alice and the rabbit – the later years” was like that. I really wanted to use the image of the woman, and the rabbit worked its way into the composition, and then the title just popped.

3)How long have you been making collages? Do you create in other mediums or styles?

I started making the collages again this past spring, though I’ve made them on and off over the years. For a while I was making little books of collages, and I’d like to do that again. I also currently work with photography and drawing, I really like to sew, and I occasionally paint. In the past I’ve enjoyed etching, and I often incorporated collage techniques into that work.

4) I'm really drawn to your collages, especially the following images: "Farewells are Difficult", "She Addressed Herself to the Dark Hearts...", "For Many Years She Fished..." and "Alice and the Rabbit". My grandmom, Alice looked alot like the woman in "Alice"!

I think it’s a lovely bit of serendipity about your grandmom and the woman in “Alice.” I hope she retained a sense of adventure in her later years!


5)Your work recollects retro sci fi book covers (to me). Are you a fan of sci fi or the art covers?

That’s so interesting! Now that you say it I can really see the connection - especially with the sense of the human in the familiar/yet unfamiliar landscape. I’ve always been interested in science, and my dad’s always been a big science fiction fan, so that’s probably where it comes from.