Altered art book Page 19 Behind the Curtain

Continuing my Altered art book: page 19: the words I have chosen are;

He had a moment of clairvoyance

He turned cold inside and something tightened in his head……

I had a bit of a job with this.  Why had I chosen those words so long ago?

page-19with curtain up

 

‘A moment of clairvoyance’ what does it mean? a sudden enlightenment? a revealation? the moment you just ‘knew’?  I think everyone gets glimpses every now and again.  I think ‘clues’ are all around us about what is going to happen, or what direction we are heading.  It’s a matter of interpreting them, being aware and sensitive to slight changes.  This made me think about lifting a curtain up, or a veil and taking a peek what lies beyond it.

page-19-with-curtain-down

 

I printed out a small picture of Aleceister Crowley (why him?  I honestly don’t know), but its likely because he tried to get beyond the veil…into a few dark corners lol!  I then placed a ‘curtain’ over him.  I suppose I was thinking of the Magician (so above, so below) and subverting this to ‘so underneath, so over (the top lol) or so is hidden, so is revealed.  The artist relating to this page will be myself………….

Media used; handmade paper, oil pastel and water colour, photocopy, organza ribbon

To be continued

Altered book: in the beginning

Just getting started

 

I have been interested in altered books for a few years now.  I even contemplated making one as part of a project at University, but I never got round to it.  There is something magical about transforming the written word into a work of art.  The making of such a book incorporates the use of collage, mixed media, paper, fabric and all the media I like working in.  I started this book about 3 years ago.  I did one page and then forgot all about it until I found it again recently. 

 In one day I managed to do 4 pages: the next day I did 2.  Work on it was very sporadic and I hadn’t been going long before I realised that the print was quite small and was being overwhelmed by the images.  It was important to me that some of the original text was retained.  This could be a word or a sentence of my own choosing.  So I went through the first few pages choosing the text.

  I had absolutely no idea of how the page would look in advance, I responded in an instinctual way: the way the words spoke to me!  After I had chosen my words, I then went through the book adding colour to pages (including those I hadn’t chosen the text of yet) and employed different media, like oil pastel, acrylics, pen and ink.  I ripped, punched and clipped pages wherever I wanted with no thought to how the end product would look, I just knew that I didn’t want it to be ‘pretty’ or like a scrapbook.