The book in question was an old chemistry textbook from her university days that had sentimental value. When she approached me to create an altered book she had no particular requirements other than a horizontal composition, the rest was up to me. So of course I was overwhelmed with possibilities and completely blocked on what to do, up until two weeks ago that is.

My concept for this book was to create a sculptural piece with a more abstract composition than my previous altered book work. I began with a flurry of paper folding in a five page pattern with a slightly different variation on the right and left sides. The video above was taken using the iTimelapse app on my iPhone during about an hour or so of work at the beginning stages of page folding.

I added a decorative red paper with a gold design as the end pages once the page folding was complete, and then tried to figure out my idea of sewing thread throughout the book.

This part was tricky because paper is not at forgiving about sewing mistakes the way fabric can be, so I experimented a bit with a secondary book before fully diving in. I stitched the thread back and forth across the book in an irregular pattern because I felt it worked better and looked more interesting than carrying the same stitch across the entire piece.

Once the completed altered book was framed I needed to go back and increase the tension in most of the threads. I’d been working with the book flat or on a slight angle and discovered everything shifted once the book was in a horizontal position. Imagine me pulling the threads tighter as it hung on the wall, and you get an idea of this part.

In choosing the title for this I wanted it to relate to chemistry in a subtle way. I did my usual playing around with different terms in google search to inspire ideas and came up with, “Thread of Transformation”. It relates quite literally to the metamorphosis of the book itself, but is also a play on chemical reaction as a form of changing one thing into another.

I was very pleased with the finished altered book, but was nervous about sharing it with my client friend. I needn’t have worried because when I presented it to her over the weekend, she absolutely loved it. Hooray!

To get an idea of some of the work you can make in this class, check out the set on Flickr of work made by students from previous workshops.

For further details and to register for the class, please visit the Blim website.

Altered Book Workshop at Blim
Date: Saturday, April 28th, 2012
Time: 2 to 5pm
Cost: $74.80 ($65 + tax + $2 service charge)
Location: 115 Pender St. E, Vancouver

Book Art: Iconic Sculpture and Installations Made From Books
by Paul Sloman
Amazon listing

1000 Artists’ Books
by Sandra Salamony, and Peter & Donna Thomas
Amazon listing.

I may have some of my work published in 1000 Artists Books. I’m still waiting to hear if it made the final cut. Either way, it will be a welcome addition to my collection of art books.

I love sharing what I do, and it’s inspiring for me to see people walk away at the end of class feeling excited about what they’ve just learned. Below are photos of some of the amazing work made by participants in the class.

At the moment I’m working on booking more classes for the upcoming months, and have been asked by Blim to teach the class again. Stay tuned to the blog or my mailing list for details.

To get an idea of some of the work you can make in this class, check out the set on Flickr of work made by students from previous workshops.

For further details and to register for the class, please visit the Blim website.

Altered Book Workshop at Blim
Date: Saturday, February 25th, 2012
Time: 2 to 5pm
Cost: $74.80 ($65 + tax + $2 service charge)
Location: 115 Pender St. E, Vancouver

Guy Laramee

Guy Laramee carves stunningly detailed landscapes from stacks of books.

Isaac Salazar

Isaac Salazar uses math and an exacto knife to create intricate text-based designs.

Robert The

Robert The “lovingly vandalises books back to life” by precision cutting shapes such as guns, and insects from books.

Thomas Allen

Thomas Allen cuts and creases the covers of vintage paperbacks to create three-dimensional tableaux, which he then photographs.

Veronika Anita Teuber

Veronika Anita Teuber takes the books she has read and seals them in paint and beeswax.

Casey Curran

Casey Curran creates amazing kinetic sculpture from books, wire, wood, and rope.

There are more artists working in altered books beyond the ones I’ve listed here, but these are some of my favorites. If you’ve come across book-related art you’d like to share, please do leave a comment.

Since I often get sent links to the work of artists I’m already familiar with, I thought I’d highlight some of them here. It’s amazing to see the variety of ideas and styles of work each artist has developed in working with old books as their medium.

Brian Dettmer

Brian Dettmer describes his work as “book autopsies” as he seals the book and carefully cuts away page by page to reveal interesting elements of the book.

Su Blackwell

Su Blackwell uses books to create beautifully detailed diorama’s inspired by fairy tales and folklore.

Mike Stilkey

Mike Stilkey is a painter and illustrator who uses stacks of books as a canvas for his whimsical cast of characters.

Kylie Stillman

Kylie Stillman creates much of her work by cutting into stacks of books or paper, and focuses on imagery of birds and nature.

Cara Barer

Cara Barer is a photographer who documents the sculptural pieces she creates from soaking and manipulating discarded books.

More to come in part 2 of the altered book artist round up…

To clear out some of this older work I’ve decided to continue with the inventory clearance sale I held during First Saturday a few weeks ago. Come find a great deal on one of my metal prints, or maybe an altered book is more your style.

Here are a few of the items I am selling:

Altered Books

In The Shade of The Cherry Blossoms – $300 (regularly $450)

Circle Away & Return – $300 (regularly $550)

Metal Prints

Magnolias 24″ x 12″ Metal Print – $150 (regularly $300)

Red Leaves Above 24″ x 24″ Metal Print – $300 (regularly $500)

Please note: the altered books included in the sale are ones I consider one-off experiments. Most of the altered books are regular price, but are also available for viewing.

The work can be viewed at my East Vancouver studio by appointment. Contact me by Email: rkashe (at) gmail (dot) com or by Phone: 604.787.9237 if there is something you’d like to see.

The composition for this one is pretty spare, and I’m struggling with whether to leave it as is or add a little “something”. From what I can tell these types of owls don’t perch in trees, and their environment isn’t very colourful. I decided to share it even though it feels unfinished.

I divided the book into four sections and folded these in alternating directions. I refolded some of the page ends to suggest a rocky (icy?) environment for the owl, and added silver and blue paper as the end pages.

My next step is to frame this one along with the other four. All of these will be on display and available for sale during the Eastside Culture Crawl in November.

Materials used: used book, decorative paper, paper owl, cardboard, white glue, and gel medium.

This is a Long-Eared Owl, and though its ear tufts aren’t actually ears I like the idea that it’s a good listener.

The book was very fun to fold and I love the way the bottom and top sections swirl around one another. With all of these owl books I’ve been folding pages a second or third time after the initial sectioning and folding. It can be a tedious process to crease a three hundred page book and this is how I keep things interesting. It also has resulted in more sculptural work.

For the Long-Eared Owl I returned to making leaves using a paper punch and printed paper to create the suggestion of a tree. I also selected very dramatic Asian-inspired black paper with a gold pattern as the end pages.

There is one more owl altered book to unveil, so stay tuned.

Materials used: book, fancy paper, paper punch, paper owl, cardboard, and white glue.

I completed this one two weeks ago, at the same time as a book with a Long-Eared Owl which I will share later this week. This is a Barn Owl and she is the most elegant of all the owls I worked with in this series. It’s wonderful how different each bird has been from one another, and it’s ensured they are each pretty unique altered books.

I kept things very simple with the composition of this one. I added fancy end-pages with a leaf design in gold which works well with the elegant figure of the Barn Owl. I stayed away from leaves and trees for this book and decided to add a tangle of red thread around the bird’s feet. I was originally trying to create a thread nest but then realized this type of owl doesn’t make them. Nest or not, the thread stayed because it anchors the bird in the book.

I did yet another new way of folding with this one, a mix of two different kinds. It was intended as a horizontal piece but then I decided it worked better as a vertical, and also to mix things up with these.

The owl series is complete and I will be debuting them all in person at the Eastside Culture Crawl in November.

Materials used: book, fancy paper, red thread, paper owl, cardboard, and white glue.

With this one completed now there are four of these books with trees/birds/doorways. I keep thinking about these as the “Birdhouse series” because the trees with doorways are homes for birds.

The small white birds are a set of wood buttons I picked up at Button Button last year. I’d forgotten about them until last week when I was looking for something to work with. I have a few more of these that are in flight, and then four black crow buttons as well.

I realized after finishing this one I don’t enjoy working on this series of books as much as I do the owls. The process isn’t as creative because I’m using a lot of the same elements and ways of making them. I think this may be why I stopped working on this series when I first started it last year.

I’m sure I can find a way to make the process more interesting…

Materials used: book, bird buttons, inkjet print of my photo, resistors, rubber stamp and ink, white glue, and gel medium.

With this book I began with an exploration of a different way of folding the pages rather than deciding on the composition I would work towards. It was challenging to work with three different directions of folds but the end result is a fascinating pattern and shape to the book.

I left Mr. Horned Owl (the Great) attached to his branch and decided he needed to be sitting majestically in a tree. I rolled a few pages to give him something to rest on and suggest the shape of a tree. The leaves were the final touch that I really wasn’t sure was going to turn out as well as it has. These are made with a leaf-shaped paper punch and I’ve used them to add colour but keep the focus on the owl.

I’m going to keep exploring the subject of owls for a few more books, at least until I run out of the birds. To keep things interesting I’ve set myself the challenge of playing with new ways of folding the books as I do them.

Materials used: book, patterned paper, leaf-shaped paper punch, white glue, and gel medium.

I actually started this series back in March 2010 when I created two niche cut books using imagery of trees and bird-related items. All are made from books that are blank inside and out, because they were publisher mockups for the hardcover version of Harry Potter novels. My friend Siobhan saved them from the bin and gifted them to me for altering.

I’m going to continue to create these using similar elements: a doorway cut into a tree with items related to birds on the inside, and a design printed along the edges of the closed pages. While I really like the use of small twigs incorporated into the previous two books in this series, having them makes it difficult to store/ship the work because they stick out and are delicate.

Materials used: blank book, ink jet print of photo, transparent egg, gesso, book page scraps, wine cork, rubber stamp & ink, and gel medium.

I’m continuing to use the birds cut from the same encyclopedia as the ones I’ve used in the recycled collages I shared previously. There is a section on owls I’ve been saving and now at least some of these are going to show up in altered books.

As always I’m experimenting with how I work with the books. With this one I’ve folded the pages inward towards the spine but done the middle section at a different level. I wanted to play with varying how I fold the pages rather than keeping things the same throughout the book.

This is the first of two altered books I’ve completed this week. I’ll share the other tomorrow.

Materials used: book, card stock, paper owl, hand-cut leaves, wine cork (which you can’t see), and white glue.

Normally I follow the same pattern of folding the pages through out a book but with these two the folds are irregular and create a ripple effect through the book. It’s an interesting technique, but it doesn’t entirely work for me. I need to experiment further to figure out how to do this better.

I may end up removing the covers from these books to use in a collage, and then turn these into a wall piece. I like the idea of the shaped pages rippling from one book to the other.

Check out the work of Issac Salazar for advanced book page folding.

I was drawn to the elegant simplicity of these book bursts, which are made from cutting a book into sections and then folding the pages. I chose a fairly thick book so it took quite a long time to do all that folding.

Each one is done in a slightly different way, and it’s interesting to see the patterns and texture that emerge in each. I’m going to experiment a bit more with something different again with the remaining section of the book.

It feels really good to be exploring books in a different way than usual and I’m curious to see where this will lead.

Normally with the books I use in my altered book work the cover of the books ends up hidden away. This one was much too nice to not feature in a composition and so it’s ended up as the background for this collage.

I chose the crane for this because it was the first thing I came across when I opened the bird encyclopedia to select a bird. It seemed like the perfect one to go with the colours and flower motif. I decided to continue with the paper waves because the crane is also a wading bird.

I sorted through the pile of saved envelopes looking for something that would go well with the patterns on the cover but wasn’t the usual blues of security envelopes. I found one with this grey pattern that feels very Japanese, and it ended up being the perfect thing.

Materials used: book cover, thread, paper bird, book page scraps, security envelopes, and gel medium.

The canvas for this collage is the cover of a wooden box, the rest of which I used earlier this year in another mixed media assemblage piece. The Japanese characters are part of the original cover design and I tried to incorporate them into the composition because they’re lovely.

It was fun to try different things with the same materials. So far I’ve mostly been making clouds with the scrap book pages and security envelopes, but this time it made more sense to reference water because these are shore birds.

The finished artwork feels very Japanese, and I love how beautifully all the elements come together.

Materials used: sewing pattern paper, security envelopes, book pages, paper birds, wooden box lid, and gel medium.

This is part of a series of collages I’m creating as a warm up. I’ve taken most of the summer off from making things and it feels good to get back to it.

As mentioned previously, I’m tentatively calling this series, “Put a Bird on it”, as each one will be a whimsical composition containing birds. They all come from the same bird book I found at Value Village and each collage contains upcycled security envelopes, scrap book pages and thread. I’ve decided to use both found wood boxes and book covers as the “canvas” for these.

Even though it’s still months away my efforts in producing new work is in preparation for the Eastside Culture Crawl in November. Stay tuned for more new work.

I picked up an illustrated bird encyclopedia from Value Village a few months ago with the intention of using the bird illustrations in collage work. Some of the birds are fairly close to the life-size, which made them perfect to use on the paper tree.

I cut out twenty-five birds from the encyclopedia. Each one is glued to a thicker cardstock and attached to the tree with a pin. I wanted to be able to move them around and not make them a permanent part of the tree. The birds are a delightful addition, and I wish I had somewhere in my apartment I could leave the whole thing set up for my enjoyment.

The Tree of [Un]Common Knowledge was supposed to be displayed in the lobby of the Sandbar Restaurant for ReVision @ Creekhouse, which is a show of artwork made from recycled materials. Unfortunately I decided to withdraw it at the last minute because the space I was given in the lobby of the restaurant wasn’t suitable and I felt the tree was at risk of getting damaged.

I’m hoping to eventually find somewhere else to show this, so stay tuned…

I have work on display in ReVision @ Creekhouse, which is a show of artwork made from recycled and repurposed materials on Granville Island. The show started last weekend and has just been extended one more week (due to popular demand) and will run until Sunday, July 24th.

The Forgotten Knowledge series of altered books that I created last year for Container Art is on display in the window of the Stone Age Art Company. It’s the prefect spot for the books and can be seen even if the shop is closed.

Boris helped me deliver my work to Granville Island last Wednesday and the hilarious thing is we used a smart car from Car2Go to do it. (It’s our only access to a car at the moment, because we don’t own one). Between the four boxes of books, large bag of paper flowers, and one giant paper tree, we were packed in tighter than a clown car full of clowns. (We felt like clowns too).

There will be more work added to ReVision this coming weekend, so if you’re down on Granville Island check it out. Details can be found on their web site.

I had many great conversations with people about books, and was glad to hear “book people” such as librarians love my work. It was a pleasure to hear people stop by and tell me they found my work beautiful. I’m glad what I do inspires people.

This is the set up of my booth at Maker Faire. I’m so glad I had the space to include my paper tree. It hasn’t gotten out much since I made it last November.

Congratulations to the organizers of Maker Faire for such a successful event. They did a terrific job of bringing everything together and having the whole experience run smoothly.

Many thank yous to the friends who stopped by to visit and give me a short break, especially to Kai and Boris for helping with the booth set up and tear down.

The Thumbelina book is the fifth and final fairy tale altered book I have made for the show at Seymour Gallery. I was inspired by the imagery of a tiny figure in a flower and wanted to make something three-dimensional from paper. The figure inside the flower pictured here, is a photograph of my friend Siobhan curled up and pretending to rest.

In the story of Thumbelina there are many animals she encounters on her adventures, and I chose to reference only two of these. A mouse gives her shelter in her time of need, and she rescues the swallow who eventually rescues her in return. I cut the swallow from an old bird field guide, and made the mouse as an original paper cut painted with brown acrylic paint.

The leaves were also hand-cut from paper and added to fill out the composition. I’m not one hundred percent happy with this book but I am out of time to make it better. The part I really want to do over is the flower because it’s rather clunky, but once it was glued in there was no going back. I think it’s a case of liking pieces of this composition more than the whole thing.

There is one week to go before the show opens at Seymour Art Gallery. Details here in case you missed it.

Materials used: book, green card stock, pink card stock, paper bird, tissue paper, acrylic paint, white glue, and gel medium.

When these are hung together the wolf will flow around them, from the left side to underneath them. He really completes the whole picture. I decided to treat this more as an installation piece to better tell the story, and I’m saving the final view of everything together for the show.

The piglets I’ve used are toys I bought from Michael’s art supplies, which is not a store I normally visit, but I figured they carried this sort of thing. I painted two of the pigs and left one of them clean and pink so they would look different from each other even though they are exactly the same. The book houses are covered in raffia, dried stems from a lemon balm plant, and paper I hand cut to look like bricks. A special thank you to Horst for cutting the corners off the books with his bandsaw and making them look like houses.

Materials used: three books, raffia, dried lemon balm stems, Japanese paper, white card stock, three plastic pigs, acrylic paint, white glue, and gel medium.