jennifer mullin lives & breathes collage. by day, she’s an art teacher and by night, she cuts things into little pieces & puts them back together again! while others may list acrylics, pastels, or charcoal as their primary medium, jennifer lists magazines.
her chair collages have become pretty iconic to me. i only dream that the interior of my home could look as put together and cozy as her little collaged nooks. any upholsterers out there? someone give this woman a job putting patterns together!
jennifer rediscovered her love of collage – and got back to actually making art! – in 2006. she says:
In 2006, I spent the summer living in Portland, Oregon. One of my goals for the summer was to get back into making art. Besides teaching art, I had pretty much stopped making art altogether for a few years and I knew it was time to get back into it. I thought I would go back to watercolor, but just wasn’t feeling it, so I picked up my domino magazine and started cutting. These were the first two pieces I made: one and two. This floral theme has continued for several years now!
When I am starting a new piece I don’t do much preliminary work besides choosing a format and support. Lately I have been working on cradled hardboard or canvas. Then I start flipping through some magazines in search of colors and patterns that appeal to me. I usually do have some sort of color scheme in mind before I start. Once I have assembled my colors, the scissors come out and I start cutting out the flower and the rest flows from there. Once I’ve glued down all of the pieces, I usually embellish the collage with ink or paint.
For me, collage is a very spontaneous media and I tend to be a very spontaneous person. Long term planning is not my specialty, and its not always necessary in collage. That’s why it seems to work so well for me.
you can see more of jennifer’s work in your etsy shop.
Editor’s note: I used to love collaging with my old dominos. RIP.
Tara Gentile is a business coach and blogger serving passion-driven entrepreneurs with fresh ideas about 
I’m starting to dabble in collage and have been in the seek and find mode (finding those perfect bits to put in my collage work) for the last few weeks. I love how Jennifer ties all the different patterns and textures together so that it all flows very nicely! Very well done and thank you for the inspiration!
I LOVE the chair piece!
Jennifer’s work is so wonderful…right on the mark to suggest textile or pattern development in a commercial or artistic role as well… she’d be perfect for that!