I just got an email letting me know that my altered book has been selected to be in the library’s exhibit (along with like 50 other ones), which I assume means I didn’t place top 3, booo (there were sweet prizes for the top 3). But I get to be in the exhibit which is neat – I’ll stop by and see what the top 3 look like. No I did not google-stalk the other email addresses the message was sent to in order to retroactively check out the competition, why would you even say that. But, based on my not-stalking, it does appear that several For Real Artists also entered so I’m pleased to even be with them in the exhibit!
Archive for September, 2009
BT-dubs I was on vacation
Arizona: Phoenix – Grand Canyon – Petrified Forest – Painted Desert – Sedona (Above). I will probably write some kind of post about it (since I took about 1004 photos) assuming it doesn’t all fall out of my head. But now I have to go to bed because it’s back to work in the morning aauughhhhh
Altered Book: I C
…aka the worst title ever, but what can ya do. Check out the flickr set for all of them, but here are a couple pics. In general I’m pleased with it, but I really wish I had more time — it feels a little unfinished to me.
The eyes have velcro backing and can be switched around.
I won’t lie, I love these eyeball supermodels. Although making their outfits was super tedious because they are pretty small.
My biggest beef is with this page – the plastic across the maze is a little too tight and/or the ball is a little too big, so sometimes it gets stuck and doesn’t roll around like it should. I really wanted to fix it but I would have had to rip out the entire thing and I just didn’t have time. Oh well!
I mentioned in the last entry that the book itself really influenced the outcome – I came to it with a single idea (the first two pages, where you could see the eye through the hole…thing) but after that the ideas just came out of nowhere and fit surprisingly well with the text. Things like that give me the weird feeling that the piece has a life of its own and wants me to bring it into existence. I feel a little pretentious saying such a thing about a piece like this that isn’t really “serious,” but we need “not serious” things just as much as we need “serious” things amirite?
In Progress 2
This is becoming increasingly complicated. I hope I can finish it this week. 
Don’t worry, I’m still working on it so it (theoretically) won’t look like a four year old made it; I just like taking pics of the progress to compare to the finished thing.
I’m liking this project because the text has informed a lot of what’s going on. I started out with an idea of my own but I really wanted to actually incorporate parts of the book text, so I kind of flipped through and found some little bits that I liked. I’m really happy with how it’s all fitting together!
In Progress
I think my favorite thing about this sort of thing is I get to figure out the best way to manifest my idea (ha, that sounds so new agey) – it pretty much never works the way I think it will so I have to figure out Plan Bs and adjust as I go. I don’t expect I’ll ever get to the point where I can just make something the way I want it right away – and really, if I could do that, I’m not sure I’d enjoy it as much. It definitely gets frustrating but when it’s all over it’s so satisfying!
Sometimes I need to stop to clean off my table … for obvious reasons. It’s a little ridic (the Botticelli book weighs like 100 pounds so I use it to press things that are drying)
