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.

I decided to take part of last week off because even though there was a tonne of work I needed to do I was feeling far too depleted and brain dead to accomplish anything. I needed to brainstorm new ideas for an upcoming project but since nothing was coming I realized I needed a break. The PNE show took up a lot of my time in a way I hadn’t expected and it was a drain on creative energy after awhile. Towards the end of last week I could tell I made the right decision about taking a step back because the creativity and ideas started to flow again. Phew.

I need to create new work in time for the Culture Crawl in November, but first I need to put something together and write a proposal to submit at the end of next week. I won’t say much about what this one is all about because it’s in early stages. It’s an open-ended opportunity and I’m using it as an excuse to work collaboratively with friends and to create a large installation piece. The paper tree pictured here is a prototype for part of what I’m hoping to do on a much larger scale.

I’ve had the idea rolling around in my head for awhile about making a tree, and there are many different ways I could do it (and still can). I wanted to tie it into the altered book work I create and even contemplated making a tree out of books. Making the prototype helped to formalize my ideas and now I have a clear idea how to proceed with the larger version.

It’s a bit rough around the edges but I didn’t want to be too precious with it because it’s meant to be a first draft. My biggest frustration while working on this were my limited drawing skills, but they’re good enough to make the outline of a tree.

I’m hoping the final version will be magical enough to fill the view with wonder and awe. That’s not a lot to ask of my work, is it…?