I keep looking at this and feel it needs something more, but at the same time the right side of the book is filled with many objects and feels too busy. I’ll probably leave it alone in the end. The most interesting object in this composition is the jaw bones which are the remains of the young deer we consumed at Christmas last year. (More on that..) I found the bones while walking on Bowen with Anne over the Labour Day weekend and a mere month later have turned them into art. The little red feather is from a Scarlet Ibis at the Vancouver Aquarium that I picked up on a visit there more than a year ago. (Apparently I’ve been collecting random bits with a purpose!)

While I worked on this over the thanksgiving weekend I was reading The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson which is an excellent book filled with layer upon layer of stories. I originally thought I would title this with a line from the book, but in the end my thoughts about it went elsewhere. Though maybe not so much since the past plays an important role in the plot of the book.

The materials used in this altered book: the jaw bones from a deer, small stones, beach glass, a brass button, half a mussel shell with barnacles, an ibis feather, dried berries, red thread, sewing pattern paper, a key, a ginko leaf, and a Japanese maple leaf.

My goal for the weekend was to work on another altered book which I happily managed to do. This time I wanted to try a new technique so instead of rolling pages I cut a niche into the book. In order to do this I first had to select something to insert into the niche to determine the size, shape and depth of the cut. I went with the brass bee wings which at one time was part of a doorknocker. I found it a few years ago behind the fridge (of all places) in my last apartment. The rest of the composition for this piece came together after the niche was cut and I spent a long time going through my collection figuring out what would work. I included another found object, the rusted metal wire, which is something I picked up on a walk and have been holding onto. I can see I’m going to be on the look out for more such things to use in future work.

This collage includes a glass heart, two lock mechanisms, a broken earring, a rusted metal wire, part of a brass doorknocker, rubber stamping and ink, sewing pattern paper and acetate (?) butterflies.

This is my second altered book, which I worked on in stages over the course of five days. It’s the gluing that takes the longest because I usually need to leave it to dry and set before I can move on to the next phase. I love making these because they require careful planning a few steps ahead, like putting the hanger on the back of the book before it’s even started, or knowing how many pages to leave unglued for rolling.

I decided to use the page rolling technique again even though there are about a zillion different ways to alter a book. The type and age of the paper makes all the difference in workability. This book’s pages were heavy and brittle which made it tricky to roll without ripping the corners.

The only thing I had in mind when I started was to cut into the rolled pages somehow and have the bits sticking up. The piece came together when I decided to use the wooden tiger and create a scene around him, with the cut pages as grass. The rabbit was added as an afterthought at the bottom because I felt it needed something to create more of a narrative and balance out the composition. I googled what do tigers eat? first to make sure tigers have rabbits (hares) as prey in their natural environment, and they do.

The tiger and rabbit came from a bag of wooden animals I picked up at a garage sale last year. I’ve been saving them for just the right thing. The collage also includes metal stars, Japanese paper, rubber stamping, ink, and metallic paper flowers.