The book will stand

I've been playing with the book, it seems to want to stand. It's a bit fragile, so it's going to need some support and a base. So far I'm seeing more of what's going on around the book than what's going on in it.

Sculptural Book Art Revisited

Having committed to participating in the sculptural book show I have until November 20th to finish my piece. It's my first work of this kind and I was unsure of which direction to go in. Research showed both sculptural books created from exsiting books, like the ones pictured in the previous blog and books created entirely by the artist; a great book on this type is "The Penland Book of Handmake Books". I'm going to work on an existing book.

I looked through my books and after narrowing it down to two, finally decided to use an old Lino Typefaces book because the finished piece will probably have faces in it. What do you think? Too obvious?

sculptural book art

I recently recieved an invitation to participate in a sculptural book art show, this intrigued me because I hadn't heard of sculptural book art. I googled it immediately and was amazed by what I found. Two of my favorites were: Brian Dettmer, an American artist who cuts layers from pages to reveal images and words beneath and Su Blackwell from England who does intricate cuttings from the pages of books that she then stands up to create magical worlds. Totally different work, but both take my breath away. I hope you enjoy them too.

more work in progress

This morning I opened the drawer of the flat file to hunt for photos and ephemera to add to the assemblages and the drawer exploded. It was bond to happen sooner or later; it was overstuffed with, well, stuff. I long to be organized, I work to get everything in order, fully intending to keep it that way (I actually believe that I will), but of course it never lasts. In a hurry looking for something I'll riffle through, or coming home from a successful hunt I'll toss new finds in; whatever the cause chaos inevitably returns. Today is the day to reclaim the drawer. I'll let you know what treasures I rediscover.

in the studio (at last)

In the studio today after a long (too long) dry spell. Well, not a dry spell really, it was more a matter of not having my priorities straight. So, now I'm trying to keep those priorities in order and make studio time the top one every day (when possible of course). The problem this morning was what to work on; new inspiration, or old project? The answer seems to be a bit of both. I often work with Creative Paperclay and it's best built up in layers, so I added layers to some already-in-progress work. I also started some backgrounds for some small assemblage pieces. This afternoon I'm going to search through my treasure trove of the bits and pieces that have followed me home and see what wants to be part of the assemblages. I think I'm also going to get out the sea glass that we found on the beach in Grand Turk and think about making some souvenirs from our family vacation. I guess that's part of the problem too isn't it? So much inspiration, so little time!

Anne Ross Oliva

olivamoon.etsy.com