Canvas to the Imagination

Those tiny bottles I started working with a few weeks ago have all been filled with things and have at last made their way into an altered book. I raided the spice rack for the bulk of the filler, selecting herbs and spices based on colour and texture. One of the bottles is filled with tiny seeds from Yuuki’s food. I decided to fill the brown bottles with random inedible items and have something sticking out the top of each because they are too opaque to see inside.

When I first envisioned the bottles in a book I thought I would put them in orderly rows as if they were on shelves, but as I started to create the composition it seemed more interesting to stack them and have the rows overlap. I had to decide exactly how they would be arranged before I could start cutting into the book, and I had to maintain the same arrangement in order to make them fit back in.

The bottles inspired thoughts about alchemy, potion mixing and magic so I used this as the jumping off point as I chose the finishing touches for the composition. The book is lined with sewing pattern paper with lines and symbols that make me think of star charts, and the colour of the paper seems old and yellowed. Every other object I chose is metallic – various coins, a locking mechanism and a key – to tie into the transmutation of metals often associated with the art of alchemy. The copper coil in the center of the book was made by winding wire around a skewer. I added the same copper wire to the seven brown bottles because they looked too plain as they were.

Materials used: book, sewing pattern paper, locking mechanism, coins, rusty key, glass bottles, copper wire, dried flowers, metal chain, pencil crayon, bamboo stick, map fragment, book page fragment, feathers, bird seed, and various herbs and spices.

I think I’ve mentioned before that with the portrait series I’m trying to explore ideas I originally shot as self portraits. I’ve always wanted to redo the Mad Hatter shot of myself from two years ago because it’s a great idea and I felt I could do it better – and incorporate even more hats. And now…voilà!

Shai of Pome Studio is the model in the updated Mad Hatter portrait. I chose her because she’s not comfortable having her photo taken (typical for most photographers) and my thought was I could hide her under the many hats. It turned out to be the perfect concept for Shai because she’s a hair stylist by profession, and she knits lovely hats for sale at Pome (five of which were used in the portrait at the top of this post). In the final concept shot I used sixteen or seventeen hats, most of which were borrowed from friends. The hat pile was far too precarious to balance on it’s own so I had to call in Boris as the hat wrangler to prop things up from the side with a broomstick and remove it from the shot in post processing.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I started this altered book wanting to change the look of the folded pages by punching flower shapes into the paper. I was going to do this throughout the entire book but the more pages I did the less effective it seemed as a technique because the punched out shapes did not show up very well. So I changed my idea and decided to work with the flowers I had created with the punch and used these as the centre piece. I wanted the flowers to flow loosely and could not imagine gluing each one individually into the book, so I came up with the idea of stringing them together with thread. Only some of the flowers are directly attached to the pages with glue.

I was curious to see how well gluing a ceramic tea cup into the book would hold up and it seems to have a strong bond with the paper around it. I’m excited about this because I have another idea with tea cups that I have yet to explore. The little green bird was added as a finishing touch because I felt the composition needed a little more life and colour to it before I could call it finished.

I wasn’t sure what to title this but the flower shapes remind me of cherry blossoms and my thoughts these days are turned to spring, starting new things, and awakenings.

Materials used: book, paper punch, thread, Japanese paper, card stock, and a metal bird.

Last Saturday I was playing around with coriander seeds Boris had brought home from his food shopping trip. There were a few scattered on the kitchen table and I started to wonder what they’d look like in the tiny bottles I’ve had waiting in the wings for their own altered book to call home. I loved how they looked in the bottle so I went searching through more things for different items to try. The photo above shows what I came up with: coriander seeds, feathers (thanks Jess), dried rosemary, and salt. As I’ve mentioned before, playing with materials is the best way I’ve found to come up with ideas for my altered book art. It moves me from abstract thinking about objects and the vague ideas I have, to playing with them and clarifying what works and what does not. Now I know I do want the bottles to contain things, and it makes me realize they’ll need to be sealed. I have an idea about that too which I need to explore.

The paper flowers in these two photos are from the altered book I just finished this week. The flowers were created using a flower-shaped paper punch on the book pages. It was an experiment because I wanted to see what the book would look like with pieces of the pages removed, but it wasn’t a very effective technique this attempt. It did leave me with piles of flowers and I decided to string these together and make them part of the composition in the book.

More on the finished book later this week. I haven’t yet had a chance to photograph it.

Remember back in November when I wrote about attending the Hot One Inch Action show? I’d submit work to it but wasn’t accepted. Well good news! The organizers of the event, Chris Bentzen and Jim Hoehnle, have decided to do a medalist round selecting work from designs that didn’t make it into previous shows, and mine was chosen. Dude, I am so excited!!!!

From their website:

Ever wonder what doesn’t make it into the show? We have a difficult time choosing buttons to be in Hot One Inch Action and with 100-150 submissions each year, there’s a lot of great art that doesn’t make the cut. So, to kick off 2010, we’ve chosen 50 buttons not in the 2004-2009 shows to be MEDALISTS. Bags of 5 random buttons will be available for $5. Get a button you don’t want? Trade with the people around you!

The exhibit is one night only and will take place on Saturday February 6, 2010, with doors open at 8pm. Boris and I will be there, and I’ll have a bag of buttons featuring my design to give away and trade. I can’t wait.

Hot One Inch Action Medalists
W2 Culture + Media House – 112 W Hastings Vancouver
Saturday February 6, 2010
doors open at 8pm