Altered Book: Let the World Speak for Itself

Altered Book- Let the World Speak for Itself

I experimented with a new technique with this book. Folding the pages is yet another way to manipulate an old book, and there are so many different ways to fold the paper too. I loved how it looked when it was done because the folded pages create a beautiful pattern within the book. I decided to divide the pages into two sections and glue the edges of the paper together on either side, leaving the end pages exposed because I liked the pattern. I kept things simple with the composition of this book because the type on the page and the pattern on the end pages makes things busy enough. I wrapped the thread around the flower seed pod stem because I felt it needed just one more little thing.

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My friend Siobhan was looking at the altered books in person yesterday and told me she didn’t get a good sense of them in three dimensions because so far I’ve photographed all of them flat. I decided to take more detail shots of this one to give people a better idea of what the whole thing looks like.

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A sewing needle embedded into the pages to secure the thread.

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A dedication written “To Elsie” on the end papers.

Altered Book- Let the World Speak for Itself

Materials used in this altered book: book, thread, two sewing needles, a poppy seed pod, and gel medium.

Button Action

Hot One Inch Action

A few friends and I attended the Hot One Inch Action button show yesterday evening. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about it’s a show of buttons designed by fifty different artists and is on for one night only. The buttons are on display at the show and people can buy grab bags with five buttons each. The idea is to trade buttons with the other audience members until you get the ones you want. Everyone gets into it and the fun of the show is in the trading.

These are five of the buttons I came away with at the end of the evening, mostly thanks to Boris because he’s a more convincing trader. I went for most of the buttons with designs featuring birds and one of the two designs featuring a cat.

This is the button design I came up with for the show. It wasn’t accepted but it didn’t make it any less fun to attend and participate. Next year I will try again.

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(Edit: The dash lines mark the button area and the bleed and aren’t part of the design.)

Polaroid Week November 2009: Red Leaves

Red leaves on tenth

Japanese Maple leaves turn the most vivid red of any tree I’ve seen. They are a favorite site when autumn rolls around and their intense colour seems bright even on the rainiest fall days. These were both taken along my street while I walked to catch the bus to work one morning.

Red leaves on tenth

Vancouver Art: The Sultry World and The Red Thread

I have two shows for you featuring the colour red. One is past and the other is upcoming.

Norico Sunayama | A Sultry World

Centre A Gallery was hosting Norico Sunayama’s live installation of A Sultry World for only two days last week, so I made sure I got myself down there to see it. The idea is relatively simple, a live model is seated high on a chair wearing a giant red dress that covers the floor of the gallery. Audience members are invited to crawl under the skirt and make their way to a sitting area directly under the model. It’s a very intimate experience and it reminded me of the blanket forts kids like to make. From the outside the installation is stunning with the red fabric covering the floor, and the way the dress transforms into different shapes when people crawl underneath. I’m very glad I went to see this because I found it a very inspiring piece.

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I love Soizick Meister’s paintings. They are everything I aspire my photographs to be; imaginative and real with the twist of the magical. Her work has had an influence on some of the photos (here & here) I took during the 52 weeks series. I saw her last show at Jacana Gallery in August 2008, and now she is having another show there, opening this Saturday and on-going until November 22. It’s called The Red Thread, and the imagery is based upon an old Chinese proverb about an invisible thread that connects those that are destined to meet. I am loving what I can see in the online gallery and can’t wait to see this work in person.

So Many Books, So Little Time

So many books so little time...

Monique Trottier was the fourth person I photographed in my portrait series. She is a voracious reader of books and writes reviews of some of them on her SoMisguided blog. Of course I came up with an idea to photograph her with books – lots and lots of them.

The concepts I came up with for her shoot ended up being the most complicated so far and have required extensive post-production in photoshop to construct each of them. I had two ideas, one is the above shot with a tiny Monique sitting on a tall pile of books. The other idea is still in progress and involves EVEN more books than this one. Neither image worked as I’d originally planned and shot, which was frustrating, and I was going to reshoot until I finally came up with a solution. Sometimes art is about problem solving.

I love the final version of this shot because it’s cute, colourful and came out even better than I’d been picturing it in my head.

Collecting Materials

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My interest in collage and altered books has compelled me to become a scavenger. When I am wandering around outside I am always on the lookout for interesting bits of natural materials, like the above acorn caps I found the other day as I walked back to work after an errand. I pick up things like this because there is something about them that attracts me, like the shapes, even if I have no idea how I can use them in future work.

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These are some of the many feathers I’ve collected or been given and I’ve started keeping them all together in box. The feathers in the photo above are a mix from peahens, chickens and crows. I have lots of lovebird feathers as well as ones from a cockatoo.

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Leaf skeletons are another natural item I’m always on the look out for, but they aren’t easy to find since Vancouver’s wet climate typically causes leaves to rot away. In the spring I came across layers of magnolia leaf skeletons under a bush in Stanley Park and I’ve used a few of them in my work, but I haven’t come across any more since then. Anne gave me the small box of holly leaf skeletons pictured here, and they are absolutely lovely.

Hopefully my collecting won’t get too out of control as time goes on, but it’s pretty typical of collage makers to have HUGE stashes of stuff. I guess the theory is that you can never have too much material to work with.

Altered Book: Close Your Eyes and Think About a Place You Want to Go

Altered Book: Close Your Eyes and Think About a Place You Want to Go

This was a frustrating piece to work on because of my idea to use thread. I wanted to create structure with the thread by wrapping it around and across the rusty wires. It was tricky trying to keep the thread tight and untangled, but also threading it around the wires in the first place was maddening at times because I needed more hands. I also had to be careful not to snap the wires or accidentally rip them back out of the book they’d already been glued into. I’m sure Boris heard quite a few noises of frustration as I worked on this. The rusty wires are old bed springs I scavenged the last time I was on Bowen.

Material in this altered book: Japanese paper, book, rubber stamping with ink, beach glass, thread, rusted bed springs, and Lovebird tail feathers from the Yuukster.

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Detail of the thread wrapping and rusty bed spring.

Awaken to the deep interconnectedness of the universe
Detail of the rolled pages from the bottom.

The Return of the Red Umbrella

Some days are just like that...

Five Wonderful Things:
1. Picking up my red umbrella from The Umbrella Shop on Broadway where I’d taken it for repair, and finding out they fixed it for FREE. (Buy an umbrella there because they are awesome!)
2. Getting starting on altered book number five.
3. Creating a button design to submit for the upcoming One Hot Inch Action show.
4. The amazing power of alone time to re-energize and pull my attitude about life out of the toilet.
5. The little Chickadees and House Finches that come to visit my fourth floor birdfeeder.

The Power of Flowers

The power of flowers

“Flowers have incredible power. Their fragile beauty ad brief life can teach us to enjoy without attachment, to experience deeply while knowing full well the experience is temporary. It is the same with all life. We will have pleasures and they too will be transitory. We are free when we are able to enjoy our pleasures without trying to hold on to them, when we are present without emotion-charged memories or looking forward to the next time. Life will have its joys and sorrows; to live fully we must live from the source, without attachment to either the pleasure of the pain.”
~ Open Mind by Diane Mariechild

I found the above quote a few weeks ago just as I was about to upload to flickr the dahlia portrait of Ariane. It seemed very appropriate given the subject matter of the shot and it also relates to some of my thoughts lately. I purchased the dahlias for the shoot from City Flowers Express at the Kitsilano Farmers Market earlier in the day. I chose dahlias specifically because both Ariane and I love them, and also they happen to have been in season at the time. Dahlias are amazing works of art in flower form, and they come in a wide range of colours and shapes.

This shot was inspired by the Spring is In the Air self portrait I did earlier in the year. I like how both shots are so happy and fun, and yet they each have a completely different feel. The photo below is a behind-the-scenes shot I took because it was amusing to have Ariane’s feet sticking out though the bunches of flowers.

Behind the scenes: The power of flowers