Canvas to the Imagination

I bought the four little old men made of clay on an impulse back in the fall. I was killing time in one of those everything-and-the-kitchen-sink Asian shops one rainy day, and decided to look for tea cups to use in an altered book. I found the tea cups and decided little clay men would be a good purchase as well. Last week when I began brainstorming ideas for a new altered book I brought them out and decided I needed to make them a cherry tree to sit under.

The little men are slightly set into the book, which is the least noticeable part, but took me a few hours to cut the four niches into the pages. The blossom flowers were made by using a paper punch and then stringing them together with a needle and thread. I used origami paper for both the flowers and the lovely blue background. The tree trunk is a rolled up page within the book with ink rubber stamped to create bark texture.

Materials used: book, origami paper, clay figures, rubber stamp and ink, and lots of glue.

I’ve fallen a bit off track with my portrait series the last few weeks because I’ve been very focused on other things. It’s also been tricky scheduling people during the Olympic craziness. This portrait features Andrea and was taken towards the end of January.

I bought three large pieces of transparent fabrics from Dressew in different colours to use as props for this shoot (and beyond). It was fun to figure out different ways to use them in the portrait, and I especially loved getting Andrea to move the fabric to create swirling bits of colour around herself. It was a hilarious part of the shoot, but the results are beautiful.

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…)

For Valentine’s Day I invited some of my friends over to pose for a Valentine-themed photo shoot. The idea was inspired by the work of Katie Sokoler and her “kiss in your pocket” flip book.

I cut hearts from red and pink paper to create a background, and picked up sparkly hearts and red tulips for props.

I asked people to ham it up for the photos. Valentine’s Day is afterall one of the cheesiest holidays ever, and standing in front of a wall of hearts calls for anything but serious expressions.

The portraits all turned out awesome and everyone looks very cute and funny. I love it when an idea comes together so well. A full set of my Valentine’s portraits can be found on flickr.

I don’t have a dedicated studio space at the moment so all of the work I’ve produced over the last few months has started to take over my rather small apartment. There are altered books (and supplies) piled in every corner and hung on most of the walls as well. This week I started working on framing the altered books in preparation of displaying them at Bootup Labs in a few weeks.

I’ve chosen to mount each book on the inside of a cradle frame, and was working at Boris’ parents place on Bowen for a few days to use their workshop for sanding and staining the wood frames. These are the first few altered books that I’ve finished framing. They look pretty wonderful, don’t you think?