Yes, it’s true. There are altered books listed for sale on Etsy. Please do check them out in my shop and share them with your friends. An independent artist is only as successful as the audience who is willing to support and share their work.

Since the altered books have returned home from the show at Art Space Vancouver, I’d been going back and forth about whether or not to list this work on Etsy. I was questioning if there is an audience for them there, whether a craft-focused site was the right fit for this type of work, and had my doubts about people purchasing work from Etsy that is of a higher price point. But it makes sense to have them there because I need to let people know they are for sale and it’s the simplest tool in which to do this. I’ve sold six of these books but I need to reach a wider audience of buyers.

I decided to rephotograph each book for listing on Etsy, to show different angles and how they look framed. I used studio lights instead of the on-camera flash I typically use when I document work for posting to Flickr and my blog. I realized as I did all this how amazingly simple the whole process of documenting artwork has become thanks to digital photography. I had the first few books on Etsy in a matter of hours, which is pretty damn awesome.

I’ve been extremely well organized about documenting the altered book work as I go along, and as I was creating the listings on Etsy I realized how valuable this is to treating my art as a business. I photograph and blog about them as soon as one is finished, and I also track them in an inventory spreadsheet in Google docs. Having so much information already on hand and online made it incredibly easy to put together the listing description and (voilà!) have new work listed for sale in an efficient fashion. It really pays off to be an organized artist, which is something that has taken me a really long time to learn.

As a side note, I’ve just started sending out a monthly newsletter with updates about upcoming exhibitions (my own and others) and new work. You can subscribe here, and I promise to keep things fun.

Since I’m on a mission to try new things with my art, I thought I’d put out a public call for feedback on the artist statement I’ve been working on for my altered books. Normally when I do this sort of thing I send it to friends for review and editing, but since this is for a wider audience anyway I’m happy to have everyone/anyone read it.

Please read it over and leave me a comment (if you’re reading this on Facebook, please come to my blog). I’d love to hear from you. The full set of the altered books can be found on Flickr.

About the Artist:
I am a Vancouver-based artist working in photography, mixed media collage, and altered book arts. My work is motivated by a need to experiment with different techniques and styles, as well as to explore the spontaneous ideas that come from the visual inspiration of nature, found objects, and connecting with the work of other artists. I love to play with my artwork and I use a strong sense of colour and striking compositions to create imagery that is personal and expresses my love of nature and imagination. I am inspired by the natural world, bright colours, and by finding magic in every day life. My work has been shown in Toronto, Vancouver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as well as published in numerous books and magazines.

About the Altered Books:
In 2007 I attended an art event in Portland called Mississippi May featuring the work of local emerging artists. My favorite works in the show were the magical illustrations of Timothy Karpinski, which he’d painted onto the pages of old books. I loved this idea because I’d never seen books used as a canvas before, and the illustrations created their own story against the backdrop of the page. I was inspired and decided to apply the idea using photos, as my work at the time was primarily photography. This led to experimentation using inkjet image transfer paper to print my photographs within the pages of books. I was never quite happy with the results because the image transfer process didn’t mix well with the aged and brittle paper of book pages. My book arts ideas went on the backburner because I felt I didn’t yet have the right tools to create work in the way I envisioned.

In late 2007 I began to work in mixed media collage and spent the next two years developing a feel for techniques. My primary medium has always been film photography but as I worked more with a digital format I craved the satisfaction of creating work “hands-on”. In September 2009 I came across a wonderful book called, “New Directions in Altered Books” and suddenly my long neglected desire to work with books was reignited. It opened up a whole new world of artistic possibilities for me, and creating collage in three dimensions.

Creating altered book art is as much about the process as it is about experimenting with the materials I’ve used to create each work. I often start with a rough idea of something I wish to explore which can be inspired by the objects or materials I have on hand, or by ways in which I want to alter the pages of the book itself through cutting, folding, etc. The composition and material choices for each book evolves as I work on them, often over several days. Every altered book I complete is a handmade original creation, and I’m addicted to making them.

(Thank you for reading and leaving a comment if you choose).

(Edit: As was bound to happen, I’ve already started editing since posting this earlier today…)