Let Happen with Linden Eller

Jill Sans and Linden Eller at the opening, September 4, 2020

Let Happen has been a special series of artworks, created right here in The HeArt Box while Linden Eller worked in the studio. This series of work was scheduled to be on display April, 2020. It was rescheduled, postponed, we tried to go virtual but it just wasn’t time. Until September became the final date for it to be shown, out of a story coming full circle as Linden embraced for a big move to upstate New York, Let Happen was a close to a chapter here in Flagstaff.

Linden Eller at The HeArt Box, December 2019

This small series came from honesty and necessity, exploring the simplicity of elements such as space, form, shape, and lines.   While combining collage materials, paint, and illustration, the process of creating activated intuition and trust.  These pieces are a response to circumstances in our narratives - an act of sitting down in an emotion as if it were a place, and looking around with curiosity.

Let everything happen to you.
Beauty and Terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final.  

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Jill Sans, owner of The HeArt Box, got to ask Linden a few questions prior to the opening of Let Happen, here we’re her responses.

Tell us about your medium collage, what does it mean to you?

I really love the collage medium because I get to create something new from materials that already exist in the world, and that carry their own history and narrative.  Often these fragments would have been discarded, and so it’s meaningful to provide a new purpose for them.  It’s also infinite!  Collage materials are constantly renewable and can be found from so many sources.  That process of discovery can be quite magical.

How did you find your way into this medium?

I began exploring collage in my early art classes in college.  I’ve essentially been drawn to mixed media from the beginning, so I suppose it found me instead of the other way around.  Even though my work has always included collage elements, it’s only been in the last 10 years that I’ve made it a primary abstract focus. 

How did the exhibition, Let Happen come about?

The series began from a small sad season I was going through.  I would show up to my studio in the morning and sit for a while, feeling unmotivated and unfocused on other projects.  So instead of forcing my feeling away, I sat down in it, and the BLUE portraits started manifesting.  This process of intuitive honesty expanded into four other experiences - BRIGHT, PLAY, FALLING, and REST.  

How does this theme relate to where you are at now in life?

I think this theme of allowing ourselves to feel what is present will always be relatable.  I’m currently in a season of transition and amidst an array of emotions - each of which I try to approach with an understanding that it is a valid but temporary experience. 

Where do you find your inspiration for your work?

I mostly find inspiration from our collective pool of overlapping stories and memories as humans.  Anyone that I meet can affect my work by words they share or perhaps even materials they unknowingly pass on that find their way into a collage. I think we all make an impact on one another, and so I also discover sparks of ideas from other makers in the world that are then translated to my own visual language and carried down a new pathway.