A Q&A with Bella Brooks

I first spoke to Bella a little over a year ago. We were sitting next to one another at a group dinner, and neither of us knew exactly why we were there. At an overwhelmingly large table of friends and friends of friends, everyone fought to get a word in and the loudest voice dominated conversation. Bella sat at the edge of the table in near silence, nodding and letting out faint giggles every once in a while, until she turned to me, sighed and said:

“Do you ever just look at people and know exactly what they’re going to look like when  they’re old?”

We spent the next few minutes evaluating who at the table we thought would grey first and who might develop a pot belly, despite their current youthful build. 

Bella has an unapologetic perception of her surroundings and an innate ability to see beyond what lies in front of her. When she began sharing her mesmerizing collages with me soon thereafter, it came as no surprise that her distinct understanding of reality translates into carefully constructed and provocative scenes. Bella’s collages digest hefty topics and lived experiences, while maintaining whimsical compositions that balance color, pattern, and figure. 

Since that dinner, I have only seen Bella a handful of times in person, yet we text nearly every week to discuss triumphs and struggles–artistic and otherwise–and share new and evolving work. I recently had the opportunity to visit her in her home in Quechee, Vermont where we talked collaging, finding inspiration, getting out of ruts, and plans for the future.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Bella, and I’m a religion major at UVM (University of Vermont). I live in Vermont, but I lived in Ohio for ten years, Colorado for a few months on my year off, Connecticut for four years, Philly for one year. I’m definitely a stay at home person (even though I’ve moved around a bit), so I’m doing well in quarantine for sure. I would say I’ve made so many more collages because of it [quarantine]. 

When did you start collaging?

I began making collages in the winter of my sophomore year of college, so that was the winter of 2018-19. I guess it was something that I forgot existed–collaging–and then I got this urge to make one out of the blue. 

I had a single room in this really quiet dorm as a new transfer student at UVM, and I didn’t have many friends in my dorm or friends in general that I wanted to hang out with. I felt that maybe I should be out at a party, but I realized that I just didn’t want to be. It’s also freezing in the winter in Vermont, and I’m not trying to walk outside at night to go to some house party where I don’t even know the people. So I decided to just make a collage that night, and it ended up actually being really calming and made me feel like there are other things I can do–and this is one of them.

My friends and I would have art nights, which was a way I could be social without putting myself in situations that I didn’t want to be in. So that’s really how it started. My first collage, I stayed up until around 5am making, and I look back now and I think ‘Bella that wasn’t even a good one.’ I just remember thinking ‘wow I love this,’ so after I started [collaging] I just couldn’t stop.

What inspires your work?

It really depends. Sometimes I’ll do something based on current events, so I made a couple about CoronaVirus, some about racism, some about US relations with Iran. But I’d say those are pretty rare, mostly I like flipping through magazines, and I’ll see a piece I really like and I’ll try to build a collage around that piece. Sometimes they’re just about how I feel. I also use collaging to process some life events.

I get inspired by mediums. I really like using pill bottle labels or packing materials like bubble wrap. I also get inspiration from things I read or other collages I see on Instagram. At first I’d say my collages are very straightforward, but I’m trying to get more into not being as up front. 

I feel like a lot of your subject matter comes naturally, and I see that a lot of similar themes resurface. Can you elaborate on these themes?

I’d say my main theme is the opioid crisis. In Vermont and New Hampshire the opioid crisis is really bad. It goes back to the plight of the white working class, which I find very interesting, and I read a lot about that, like The Hillbilly Elegy and books like that. The opioid crisis really arose out of that and is deeply tied to rural, midwest, white, working class people, which a lot of my extended family is. On my year off, when I went to see them, I realized I had a very different outlook on almost everything.

There’s a political difference, but also a lifestyle difference. What I want to spend my money on versus what they want to spend their money on, and what I spend my free time doing versus what they spend their free time doing. It's very day to day things. It even comes down to what I would buy from the grocery store and what they would buy from the grocery store. It is ideological and political for sure, but it's not unbridgeable.

I feel like I am the stereotypical coastal elite, and they’re the stereotypical middle America, so it's definitely different. But I’m kind of stuck in the middle–exposed to both circumstances. It was really interesting for me to see that, and sometimes I try to process that through my collaging. It's a go-to topic for me.

You also work a lot with the female form and how it's perceived and represented in Western society. Why do you think you’re drawn to this?

I love women. I grew up with two moms. Well, I still have two moms and I’m still growing up. My house is all women and always has been. Even my dog, Constitution, is a lady. And then I went to Bryn Mawr, which is a historically women’s college, for a year. Because of my surroundings, I don’t really think of men. They just don’t cross my mind. All of the mentors in my life have also been women.

There actually was a period of time when I just didn’t like being a woman, but I’ve definitely embraced it more. Some of my collages also deal with traumatic things that happen to women and processing things that have happened to me as a woman. I used UVM’s Womxn’s Center as a resource a lot last year, and the therapist there really encouraged my collaging about trauma I experienced. That was very validating and therapeutic for me.

What is your creative process like? Do you start with a specific strategy or theme?

I try to outline the space I want the collage to be in, cause when there’s too much space I don’t do well. When I make the collages that I think are best–it’s big things in small spaces, as my friend Kate says; they're very detailed and compact. I have to think to myself ‘Okay, I’ll make something that fits in this [space].’ Sometimes I’ll find a material I really like and then I’ll make a collage about and around it.

How do you think people receive your work?

Sure, my art has different meanings for different people, but I don’t make my art to think about what others will see, I just make my art and ask myself, ‘Do I like what I made?’ and ‘Do I understand what I made?’ Some of the things I make, I think to myself ‘this will not be received popularly,’ but the responses online are different. People who know me will say, for example, ‘this is your best work so far,’ and I’ll agree and then it won’t have much of an effect on anyone else. Maybe it has to do with a degree of knowing me.

I was doing all this research about black face in UVM’s history, and then I went to an antique store near me and then I found an old school newspaper about it, and I wanted to collage the newspaper. That’s a collage I’ve been thinking about making and displaying at school. My professor said that that might be very triggering for people, and I was glad they said something because I didn’t even think about that. Sometimes I don’t think about how other people will receive my work. It’s a privileged outlook I have.

There’s also a core group of people I send unfinished work to, because I trust and value their eye, judgment, and feedback. I can be more vulnerable with them and getting that feedback is an important part of my process, even if I don’t always listen to their ideas. It helps to talk things through. 

How do you get out of moments where you lack inspiration or self confidence?

Well, sometimes, I just don’t take my medicine for a few days. My sister was telling me when I was working on a school final project, ‘Maybe you’re just not in your manic state right now Bella, so you can’t make your art.’ It’s like writers block, but for collages!

For a while I tried to make one [collage] a day and that allowed me to be more creative with what I was doing instead of just waiting until I felt inspired. Sometimes I make little challenges for myself where I’ll try to use more white space or construct everything out of colors but no textures and photographs. Other times I’ll get on a really good roll with collaging where I’ll make three a day for eight days and then sometimes I won’t make any cause I’m busy or I’m not feeling–well, actually I’m always in the mood to make a collage, even if it's not something I’m the most proud of. It feels good to make things with my hands.

Sometimes when I’m not feeling inspired I’ll have my magazines in front of me, and I’ll put a documentary on Netflix and then usually that will get me out of it. I end up making a theme that’s about whatever I’m watching or consuming. 

Or I’ll eat spaghetti.

Have you been able to strike a good balance between creation and self care during this chaotic year?

Collaging is a good form of self care for me, but sometimes I use it as a form of procrastination and escape. When I was here [at home], but also wrapping up my year of school remotely, I turned in three essays late. My parents would say, ‘Bella, no more collaging!’

My version of self care, I guess, is taking my medicine. Collaging is bad for my self care when I don’t take my medicine so that I can speedily make one. So that’s kind of anti-self care.

Self care is also doing the things I need to do when I need to do them. It’s not as much taking a bath or meditating. I don’t need to listen to a little song or do a little dance. I just need to get my work done so that I can do fun things.

It's also things like making sure I brush my teeth. If I’m not going out that day, I’ll just stay in, and if I’m in a really bad funk, I just won’t brush my teeth–it's gross. I know it's the most basic self care.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

Well, I would love to graduate college this upcoming year, if CoronaVirus doesn’t derail those plans. I want to go to divinity school in the future for graduate school. I also just hope to have fun dinner parties with my friends and maybe start a collage club when this is all over and have a stable job so that I can keep collaging in my free time. I would love to sell them and be an artist and see my work in a studio or in a gallery, but that seems like a long time away.

You can keep up with Bella on Instagram @bellamakescollages.