News Flash! group of imagineers reinvents the flat lay.

Diane Fisher

One type of flat lay that emerged was the straight-up, real life scene. Unstaged and authentic views of the stories our surfaces tell.

Ashley Tonic

Flat-lays can be honest pictures of what your spaces look like, just as they are...the grit and the poetry within them.

Jenn McCabe

Jenn documented her day in flat-lay (this is one of many taken throughout the day).

Abigail Rose

Some participants, like Abigail Rose, created rhythms of vibrant color and shape that dance across the picture...

Donna Brown

Small and large, opaque and transparent. Simple rhythms of the small stones, and the lyrical drawing made by the string of beads. One of many that defies the white-or-wood-background (unspoken) rule.

Erin Lee Kaufmann

Sometimes the background creates the drama and focus. Another image to defy the trends and the ideology of the "neutral" space. Context is beautiful.

Erin Lee Kaufmann

A little conversation between symbols and shapes, images and objects.

Walker Thornton

Sometimes an edge says more than what it contains. This is one of a set of experiments in  painting paper and creating fragments to reassemble. Collages are flat lays, too.

Francine Clouden

A study in blue. And in shape, line and order/disorder.

Francine Clouden

Composed desktop - a celebration of object, pattern and the handmade. Also a study in how the test that shows up in assembled objects create their own little poems. 

Gianna Robinson

Treasures both opulent and everyday. Objects containing memory.  A subdued but rich color palette. Symmetry with variations. Wings, a heart, a womb.

Graeme Seabrook

Graeme played with depth and color. Isn't it sweet to see how many visual stories have been told already in these images? Such variety and surprise from one to the next.

Jenn McCabe

Found flat lay: the ground.

Moriah Helms

Many flat lays in this workshop were celebrations of the treasures of the natural world. A study in yellow and gold. Sweetness and sun.

Karryn Olson-Ramanujan

The space between the objects echoes the shape of the objects. Long lines, stars, night...

Rebecca Beliak

Elemental materials, and a dance of circles and other small shapes. Warm and cool tones.

Moriah Helms

Culture of nature / nature of culture.

Jacqueline Cromwell

When a mundane collection of objects becomes magical because of forces of light and shadow. There is always sublime in the everyday.

Jo Casey

So what CAN'T a workaday flat lay include a menstrual cup and razor?

Karryn Olson-Ramanujan

Who says you have to use plants to refer to plants? a bit of luminous green works just fine.

Francine Clouden

Little abstract composition of lines and rectangles. Its the imperfections in the arranging that give it tenderness, right?

Whitney Moss

Found typography fun.

Jenni Pertuset

More found typography, and a flat lay found on the surface dimension of a packed box. Can flat lays be found on any surface of any depth?

Raven Henderson

flat lays can be an interesting way to see how someone's mind works. Why go generic?

Jane Gerhard

A little collection of monkey moments. Little stories within the story.

Sharon Panelo

The objects telling the story (poetically) of the books' contents. In black, yellow, gold...

Joan Wyand

Joan's porcelain cups are cast from discarded styrofoam coffee cup. Here in a habitat of other discarded treasures.

Julie Jordan Scott

Playing with (fire) light in a flat lay. And layers of written, drawn and sculpted information.

Kim Mason

Vertebrae, heart, bowl, circle, fruit...so many metaphors for a postpartum body.

Kimberly Weiss

Measurement and perfection. Stain and body. The light glows on the everyday stained paper towel.

Marie Levey-Pabst

Diagonal dynamism. Intergenerational flat lay collaboration.

Michi Dinsmore

pattern, repetition, quantity. And so much more than a white background.

Heather Thorkelson

A study in objects timeworn and well crafted.

Michi Dinsmore

Study in lines, found and made.

Nancy Brittain

A pattern designer at work. Influences, process and product.

Nancy Brittain

eggs. A simple repeating form allows us to notice color and texture more powerfully.

Natalyn Niels Bradshaw

homemade postcards. More found poems.

Natalyn Niels Bradshaw

layers of found and handmade, text as drawing and drawing as text.

Rebecca Woodmass

All the cheese in a cheese lovers fridge!

Rebecca Woodmass

time passing.

Tracey Paradiso

Ascend. See.

Linda Lang

Can a flat lay happen looking straight UP?

Jenn McCabe

Can a flat lay be in motion?

Diane Fisher

Can a flat-lay be vertical?

A look at some of the hundreds of flat lay experiments that flooded the Tactical Imagination Club from March 13-17, 2017 (and beyond). View artist names and my comments/narration by hovering over the image.