Altered art book: page 16 Shooting at Cross Purposes

page-16-shooting-crosses with crosses unfolded

On this page I had chosen a lot more sentences then the previous pages (I can’t remember why though,because it was so long ago when I chose them!  The chosen words were:

” They’d shoot at the wooden crosses”

” The door would shake then

the window

then the door again”

page-16-shooting-crosses-folded

“He became a regular at the empire of junk”

“More than a hundred radios”

Now why would someone shoot at wooden crosses? target practise?  Perhaps they were trying to provoke a response (and they got one), hence the windows and door rattling and shaking.  This reminds me very much of page 4 ‘A Question of Life and Death’  but the question is attempted via a ‘seance’. 

 This time the symbolism is questioned (the Cross representing God).  But there is also a kind of ‘most haunted’, ghost hunting, a ‘thrill seeking’  aspect at work.  The situation is calling out for a sign to be given: a sign for proof of the afterlife.

pages-15-and-16 complete

And what exactly IS this ’empire of junk’?  Perhaps its the carbon footprint we leave behind us? Or perhaps this junk consists of useless negative emotions and impulses which we wear as a comfort cloak, whilst they erode, sap and impede our spiritual progress.  Sometimes we need to let go: move on.

I have a few artists in mind for this page: to be continued…….

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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.