Title: "Ode to Excess" (2024)
Size: 11"x14"
Medium: Cut-and-pasted magazine on mixed-media paper
Copyright: © 2024 Tyler Chernesky
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About This Collage
This collage was made on my 34th birthday. I wrote the following essay to express what it means to me:
"You know you don’t need to do all that…”Well, of course not.No one needs 96 champagne flutes, or a disco ball to light their foyer, or a mannequin to guard their collage supplies.
No one needs to have an oven in the basement, or a fog machine in the attic, or to send 25 letters to 25 heroes on their 25th birthday.
There is an easier way.
But where does that lead?
Nowhere I want to go.
When I turned 11, I asked for a pad of 24” x 36” newsprint. I needed big paper for my big ideas.
When I was 21, I acquired grant funding to underwrite my friends’ Christmas party.
At 28, I threw a NYE bash for 78.
Don’t get me wrong: There’s certainly time for quiet reflection. For rest and recovery. For simplicity and solitude.
But sometimes - well, many times, if you ask me - more is more.
Bigger is better.
Over-the-top is exactly just what the doctor ordered.
Because life is the greatest gift of this or any millennium.
Because every day is an occasion for celebration.
Because it is such a wild and ridiculous thing to be alive.
Because we need to remind ourselves that we really are alive.
Because no one gets a second time around.
Because this day is as good a day as any to get dressed up.
My life’s been an extravaganza.
And for that, today, I am very grateful.
"Ode to Excess" // Archival Print
Original collage in shades of red, gold and green.
This collage will NOT come framed. The framed image in the description photograph merely gives an example of what it might look like when it's displayed.
All artwork is signed on the back. Works can be signed on the front at collector's request.