Altered art book: Pages so far, ongoing

Whilst looking back at the pages I have done in  my altered art book, I became aware that some of these pages were going backwards!  In order to rectify this, I have now put these in order, with the narrative I have chosen from the book.  This makes the story flow better .  The red text are words I have added, either to join sentences together or just to bridge a gap!  I will add to this page as I go along.

Each page LINKS back to WHY, HOW and some artist rearch that I felt may be of some relevence to the page.  There are reasons for these images and stories of the journeys that took me there.

The book is called ‘The Five Gates of Hell’ by Rupert Thomson (I have never read the original book)

The early days…

Notes about this book

Page 2

 

“A mirror image of silver. The jets seared through a membrane of the sky. The air turned to sound. There was nothing left to breathe and in his ears the stammer of machine guns as the bullets scuffed the dust around their feet, raised rows of ghostly plants that grew, one after the other in the day ground, hung in the air, then crumbled, then their hands were pulled apart, and they skittered screaming, limbs of water screech like saw attacking wood.”

” Everything was white and pale blue. Curtains decorated with anchors and mermaids, the steering wheels of ships. The skull of a seagull above the bed, a silver coin winking where the right eye used to be. A heap of shells unsorted on the rug, the shells he’d found only the days before. He was in the wrong house”

p1-to-2-

Page 3

He muttered ‘Jesus’ under his breath, a new word, and just about strong enough for what he felt, and, heaving a sigh, began to retrace his steps. He wished he could just leave her behind, it wasn’t far to the house now, another five minutes, but he’d promised, Dad had made him promise, and what if something happened? There were people called strangers, and you talked to them and then something happened. He didn’t know what that something was. It was too bad to even talk about.”
“He reached Georgia and stood looking down”
JEORSUS,GEORGIA,GEORGUS,GEORSUS,JEORSUS

p3

 Page 4

p4-

Page 4

“Your mother is dead’ she told him, and he cried because the word had such a dull empty sound. She tried to explain. “When someone dies,” she said, “they go away”
“When do they come back?”
“They don’t” she said “They don’t come back”
ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?

I said “ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?”

HELLO? IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?”

 

page-3 and 4-and-extra map-

 Page 5

Legend says that the
Special fish brooch?
They’re the guardians of the soul

p5

 

Page 6

SO

Take the plunge

Black swimsuit, dry and brown

 

p6

 

p5-and 6-

Page 7
Dad says it’s in my blood

p7-

Page 8
Lots of white and blue balls……

page8-

page7-and 8-

 Page 9

A kind of reminder

Pushed into sand

p-9-

 Page 10

Booby trapped

Talk in a whisper green grass…

page-10-

 

and more details

Page 11

They walked through their childhood

 

 

page-11-

 Page 12 and more details

He hid his own fears and wishes and only took them out in private under the eye of the moon

page-12

 

page-11-and-12-

 

Page 13 and  more details

He listened to his father breathing
And made plans for that loneliness…

page-13-

 

Page 14

Helsinki

And they’d duck and flinch

page-14

 

pages 13 and 14

 

Page 15 and details

Someone was God and she was always flirting with him
In her Empire of Junk

page15-

 Page 16 and more details

They’d shoot at the wooden crosses

The door would shake, then the windows

Then the door again.

He became a regular at the empire of junk
More than a hundred radios….

page-16-

 

pages15-16-

page 17 and details

‘And’

The streets smelt of simmering reen vegetables and gas leaks

stained green sofa

didn’t realise it was for sale

‘Everything is for sale’

inside the room was such a concentration of junk as he’d never seen begore’

page17

 

Page 18

‘He stared down at the machine’

the machine began to revolve

A gritty roaring sound like the ocean dragging pebbles

soaked up by a piece of blotting paper….

page18

 

pages17-18