What is an autobiographical assemblage? It is an assemblage art piece of a figure that represents you, along with a written piece that accompanies it. The writing can be in any form: poetry, a short essay, a short first-person memoir piece, or a short story written in third person voice.

Similarly, the art can also be created in any form or media. The figure's representation of you can be as abstract or literal as you want. The technique presented here, of covering a cut-out shape with various objects, lends itself nicely to discovering the layers of symbolism in both your writing and in your art. The Art Tip in this Artellagram gives instructions on how to create the art for the assemblage, and The Writing Tip gives some guidance on how to approach the writing portion.

While there are several ways to approach the autobiographical assemblage, I find the "Art First" method to be the most intriguing. Create the art assemblage first, completely (or mostly), independently from the writing.

This is the method I used to create ARTEMIS. I created her in one sitting, simply adding objects, quickly and intuitively, to the figure in a way that intrigued me. While a few of them had a clear meaning to me (The letter "Y" on my knee, for example, signified the question "Why?", related to knee problems), the vast majority did not. It was only later, as I began writing, that I saw the level at which my subconscious mind must have been working as I selected the items I had glued on my figure, for they all seemed to make so much sense!

There were so many layers that I was able to understand about myself once I could see myself in those objects, and it was the act of looking objectively at the found objects and writing about them metaphorically that afforded that opportunity. Had I spent more time analyzing each object, I would not have had this incredible chance for intuition and art to collide with synchronicity in such a powerful way.

However, instead of creating the art first and writing about it, there are two other obvious choices. You could start by writing an autobiographical piece first, and then move to create an artistic figure to illustrate it. Another option is to work on both the assemblage and the writing piece in tandem, uncovering the meaning of the found objects as you add them to your assemblage piece, and writing about them as you are actually making the art.

The opportunity to tell one's story through art is not just a creative exercise; some might say it's an obligation to fulfill, at some point in an artist's life. Creating your memoir in art and writing can make it as powerful an experience for you as it is for those who receive the story.