PEACE
During the months of November, 2009 through the start of February, 2010 The Geauga County Park District held The DiscARTed Art Show revolving around the theme of recycling. Artists submitted a range of works from stringed instruments made from cigar boxes (a bluegrass band played them the night of the opening), to lamps, jewelry, wall art, huge iron sculptures......
I submitted this book.
Last spring our school librarian was getting rid of boxes and boxes of books, to make room for more computers. (I've got mixed feelings about that.)
I took many of the books for conversion to Art; for both me and my students. The book I reworked was from a series called THE GREAT IDEAS. Full of writings by philosophers of whose work I know next to nothing. The first page (shown above) includes some of the names; Cervantes, Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, Locke, Hume. Faraday--these last three names are significant for any LOSTIES out there!
When I started with the book this summer, I used the pages in a random fashion for wiping my excess paint from my brushes. Which then becomes a nice start for sketching, painting or collaging on.
What you see here is the Front Cover and the inside cover (p. 1)
Collage, oil paint, oil pastel, photographs, string.
Posts
I love how you started this project--wiping your paint brushes. I think it would be difficult to do this to one of my books. This calls for a trip to the thrift shop--I'll close my eyes and pick one. Great idea and interesting work.
ReplyDeleteI am a Lost fan so I got the connection(s)!
ReplyDeleteAnd like hwfarber I love the idea of the way that you began to connect to the book by wiping your brushes on the pages...since the books were tossed by the library there would be a certain freedom to alter...the whole show and the title itself is inspiring...do they do this every year?
hw~yes, I would have a hard time doing this to any of my books, so having these books that would be tossed made it easier. Our local library has monthly book sales, where I've picked up old field guides that I use in collage, at times its tough to use them. So what I've done is I keep some field guides to just have and others that aren't in such good condition to collage with.
ReplyDeletemerci33 as my kids would say...LOOOSSST!
We're all hooked, except my poor husband who has spent years with his family of Lord of the Rings, Potter and Lost nerds, just shaking his head.
Regarding the show, this is the first time they've held it; it was such a success they'll have it again in a few years. Coinciding with it, I've run a few workshops. One was a collage workshop, but the other is a jewelry making workshop which has been so successful we've run it twice with another scheduled for this summer. You should see some of the necklaces that we're made in the last workshop. I supply lots of old jewelry, beads, and miscellaneous stuff--buttons, paper clips, nuts, just stuff! People bring old jewelry and anything else that could be used to make jewelry. I could kick myself for forgetting my camera!