Just over two years after a local zine fest sparked the idea behind it, Atlanta Collage Collective (ACC) is mounting its first formal exhibition. Sixteen artists. One show at Chamblee’s Oddities Museum.
The collective traces its roots to December 2022, when a group of collage artists at the festival spontaneously started making work side by side at a communal table. The response convinced ACC founder Marty Gordon there was real demand for a dedicated collage community in the area. In February 2023, he hosted the first official Atlanta Collage Collective meetup. After bouncing between temporary locations, the group adopted the Oddities Museum as its creative home base in 2024.
“Our vision for the Oddities Museum isn’t just to display the weird stuff, but to embrace the community in different ways. We believe one of our biggest connections to the community is through art, and we will always support the arts.”
ODDITIES MUSEUM CO-Founder Kimberly Gibbs
Gordon has since relocated to Seattle. The community he built continues to grow, now organized by Brandi Olive and Julie Arnold. Monthly meetups happen one Saturday a month and are free and drop-in. The collective keeps tools of the trade — scissors, X-Acto blades, cutting mats, and a large assortment of books, magazines, and ephemera — on hand for anyone who walks through the door.
“We have a core group of regulars who often arrive with their own materials or works-in-progress, but most attendees come ready to dive into the supplies we provide,” Arnold explained.
The ACC’s debut show features artists working in traditional analog collage — hand-cut work assembled using paper, photographs, and found materials — representing a wide range of approaches, from classic cut-and-paste to mixed media. Subject matter spans real and imagined landscapes, cowboy-themed compositions, and narrative vignettes.
“We wanted to give that creativity a platform beyond our Instagram feed,” Arnold shared of the decision to mount a formal show. “We also saw an opportunity to broaden the reach of the collective, so we put out an open call to local artists outside our meetups.”
More than the weird stuff
The Oddities Museum, which opened in April 2024, is a natural partner. The museum’s first art show was a benefit for Asheville artists who lost their studios after Hurricane Helene. And, that’s where museum co-founders Kimberly and Jeremy Gibbs met ACC’s Gordon.
“Our vision for the Oddities Museum isn’t just to display the weird stuff, but to embrace the community in different ways,” Kimberly Gibbs said. “We believe one of our biggest connections to the community is through art, and we will always support the arts.”
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The show runs through June 1. The collective’s regular monthly meetup falls on May 9, which this year coincides with World Collage Day, an international observance held annually on the second Saturday in May to honor the global collage community. The meetup runs noon to 4 p.m. at the Oddities Museum.
