Part of the enjoyment I am getting out of creating work based around these wood animals is learning more about their flesh and blood counterparts. I’ve always been interested in animals but how much do I really know about most of them? Honestly, not much. But with each animal I pull out of the bag I’m learning something new.

The goose is a great example of this. They’ve always seemed like a ridiculous bird to me, but reading more about them has changed my mind. They are incredibly loyal, fierce defenders of their young, and gifted navigators. (Boris would probably also add something about how delicious they are). I almost fell heavily into Mother Goose whimsy with the goose, but the extra knowledge kept me from it.

I decided I wanted to make an assemblage piece with this book and have the main composition with the goose inside a niche. I used more colourful elements in this one just to switch things up because so many of my previous altered books lack colour.

The crazy blue and white patterned paper covering most of the book is from the inside of envelopes. I’ve collected a pile of different envelopes with patterns on the inside and as I was looking through these I found a few with this pattern and wanted to use it. I realized these were from Royal Bank mailings, and since I’d just received something from them I ripped it open to find more of the pattern on the inside that I wanted to use. Thanks for your great timing bank people.

The thread is the last element I added to the piece and as always it was very awkward to work with. Some of the thread is strung back and forth between the clarinet pieces, while the swirly bits were positioned and tacked down with gel medium.

The goose is the fourth new altered book in the wood toy animals series I’ve been working on. It will also be available for sale at my studio during the Eastside Culture Crawl.

Materials used: book, red thread, paper flowers, dried poppy seed pods, wooden blocks, wood goose, envelope paper, clarinet keys, gel medium, and glue.