The Old House
Su Blackwell creates amazing book sculptures – she uses the books themselves to create illustrations of the stories. From her artist’s statement:
It is the delicacy, the slight feeling of claustrophobia, as if these characters, the landscape have been trapped inside the book all this time and are now suddenly released. A number of the compositions have an urgency about them, the choices made for the cut-out people from the illustrations seem to lean towards people on their way somewhere, about to discover something, or perhaps escaping from something. And the landscapes speak of a bleak mystery, a rising, an awareness of the air.
Alice – A Mad Tea Party
I love books but, oddly, I have never had a problem with tearing them apart to alter them (I’ve only done it a few times; it’s pretty tedious). It is interesting how some people get so mad about it. I do understand the feeling that books are books – somewhat sacred objects – but when you are creating something new and beautiful out of them, I don’t have a problem with it (with the exception or rare editions or OOAK things, etc). And in this case Blackwell is respecting the original story and creating really amazing things; it’s not like she’s just ripping pages out for funsies.