As a pack rat, I save virtually everything. I cannot bear to throw out anything. Old books that are falling apart, plastic game pieces and other vintage game remnants, antique lace which has long separated from the dress it once adorned, a few links in an old rhinestone bracelet, vintage magazines with water damaged pages stuck together, scraps of old fabrics, empty old boxes with logos & descriptions, jars of buttons, photos of people long forgotten, old booklets sans covers with charming graphics…

Is this all saved for naught?

No. And I’m not the only person who says so.

Along with my fellow collector junkies who know the old wooden Monopoly houses must have value to a collector who is short a few of them, that it’s best to have old rhinestones with which to repair a vintage necklace or pin, and that someone somewhere is looking for the original packaging, there’s another group of people vying for these old items of mine: Altered Book Artists.

The altered book artist takes an existing book and transforms it, via gluing, burning, cutting, sewing, sawing, drawing, drilling, etc., to create a new work.

In creating these works of art, the artist may use many various means to create, including (but limited to) folding, painting, drilling, adding gold-leafing, rebinding (including adding new books to the original book and changing the shape of the book), and folding or otherwise creating pop-ups and/or pockets, even drawers, to hold notes and ephemera and even three-dimensional objects.

Altered books are like scrapbooks on steroids, going past the idea of basic cut & pasting, rubber-stamping, and be-ribboning to become true mix media artworks.

And of course they are to be collected.

Historically, one of the earliest forms of book altering was called palimpsest. During the medieval period vellum and parchment were commonly reused for economic reasons, either by rubbing out, scraping off or otherwise covering up the original text.

In the late 19th century people, Victorians used old books as a sort of scrapbook, pasting inside souvenirs, notes, magazine images, personal recipes, and family pictures. The Victorian practice of illustrating a particular book with engravings torn from other books is called “Grangerism.”

In 1966, British artist Tom Phillips purchased “A Human Document” at a thrift store and began altering the pages. Phillips painted, typed upon, drew, or collaged on each page leaving clusters of the original printed text as ‘new’ poetry. He named this new altered book “A Humument.”

Phillips is considered the father of modern altered books and now there’s an International Society of Altered Book Artists.

Like any artwork, altered books are created for many reasons. There are those altered books created with a clear mission from the start, and others which are like any other journal and mark or express a journey through personal issues.

There are altered books enhancing the book’s original theme, those which completely ignore the book’s original theme, and some which do a combination thereof.

There are books of serious artistic endeavor and lofty messages, books of whimsical fantasy, books that crack you up… Tailor made on the most specific, or expansive, of subjects imagineable. Personal.

Books not made or published to profit off the multitudes which want to read them, but each a story in words and images made for an intimate audience — even an audience of one.

A collection of altered books is a rare library indeed. Treasures to be displayed. Conversation pieces if not exhibits in galleries and museums.

One of the neatest things, at least in my opinion, is the ability of altered books to be more than solo expressions of one artist in a solitary environment.

Altered book artists form groups, much like the old quilting circles, in which they gather together.

Sometimes each artist works on their own individual project, having the social fun of the group. Other times artists collaborate on projects, with each artist working on one or more pages which will be put into one group book.

Even long distance artists have Round Robins, in which books are sent to artists who create their own unique pages before sending on to the next artist in line, until the book is completed and sent back to its owner.

Since discovering such beautiful works of art I’ve become quite smitten with the idea of making one. The idea of such social collaboration is even more exciting.

Heaven knows I have the supplies… Plenty to share, that’s for sure. (I’ll be sure to avoid using first editions and rare items!)
In a world of mass produced copies and left behind ‘junk’ (with most of the former destined to become the latter), it’s nice to know that with a bit of creativity these bits and pieces can go on to make new stories.

More Reading:

Altered Books & Book Collectors

Lessons and Tips For Teachers

Altered Book Projects from Michaels Craft Stores

Making a Mini Altered Book

List of Altered Book Events and Groups

---

Article Tags: Altered Books, books, pack rat, palimpsest, Tom Phillips

================

Gotta Collect? Then You Gotta Connect - Join our Collectors’ Community!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 3:23 am and is filed under collecting fyi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.