When we think about the process that collage requires, cut-and-paste actions immediately come to mind. No one can doubt this. Scissors and glue are the basic tools for this activity. But beyond the edge of a knife, there are other ways to cut. Beyond liquid glue, we can join one element with another. Perhaps the most fundamental tool is thought. When Pierce tried to explain how we think he resorted to examples based on relations.
A subject hears a sound. When he tries to leave his room to look for the cause, the sound disappears. When he closes the door, the sound starts again. He soon understands that turning the doorknob produces a sound. At that moment the subject establishes a relation: one thing is related to another. That is thinking.
When we think we establish relations, links. By establishing relations, we can indicate situations in the world around us. We can even delimit a whole series of relations when we synthesize them. We jump from one relation to another. We can associate autumn with a certain color in the leaves on the trees, but we can also associate it with a state of mind. Precisely the lines of connection between the elements open up many possibilities. Pierce expected each element to be a sign and the relation between all signs to be infinite. Such is our thought.
Octavio Paz said poetry is “in this to see that”. He means that we not only make relations but that we can play with appearances, with reflections. If we can see another in one thing, we pass from the field of thought to that of imagination. But perhaps there will be no change of terrain because when we imagine we empower thought. In one thing to see another. In the sun we can see many things. The rain invites us to see something else. A hand says something. The eye speaks. Soon each thing, each element of reality takes on new life and unfolds its meaning beyond its condition. It is not difficult to understand how the past, present, and future could be seen in the stars in ancient times. That was a poetic act.
Probably before cutting and pasting, the collage artist stops to think. Pause is allowed to contemplate the secret dynamism of relations. He implies that in the world there are not only causes and effects, but a maze of links. The collage artist plays with the imagination and displays his fascination for seeing “in this that”. A color, a door, a leaf, a tree, the sun, an eye, the hand, the rain, the stars, the stars. Everything can be something else. Cut, paste, imagine, think.