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Posts Tagged ‘book art’

Book Sculptures

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Asakiyume and Mary Ann have been keeping me updated on book sculptures that materialize anonymously.

This latest news, however, refers to named book artists and came by way of the Ferguson, Missouri, library, which retweeted it from something called the Ouch Club, which linked to a story at SomeDaily. (Don’t you love how one thing leads to another in social media?)

SomeDaily writes, “Old and heavy books always seem like a mysterious and infinite well of wisdom and imagination for me. That moment, when you pick up an old book from a shelf and wipe away thick layer of dust from it‘s cover, is full of magic. However, book is so much more than pages full of words.

“I’ve always thought that it would be wonderful to give old books a second life. Some artists make it happen by turning old books, dictionaries and encyclopedias into admirable sculptures.”

There are photos of 20 book sculptures at SomeDaily, here, each one as extraordinary as the one below. (If you know who writes SomeDaily, please let me know so I can give credit.)

Art: David Kracov/Galerie Beauchamp
“The Book of Life”

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Bicycle Library Serves the Homeless

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2014| 7 Comments »

A nonprofit book service in Portland, Oregon, has recognized that “people living outside” are as likely to enjoy a book as people who live indoors.

Kirk Johnson writes in the NY Times, “A homeless man named Daniel was engrossed in a Barbara Kingsolver novel when his backpack was stolen recently, and Laura Moulton was determined to set things to right.

“Ms. Moulton, 44, an artist, writer and adjunct professor of creative nonfiction, did not know Daniel’s last name, his exact age, or really even how to find him — they had met only once. But she knew the novel, ‘Prodigal Summer,’ and that was a start. So, armed with a new copy of the book, off she went. Such is the life of a street librarian.

“This city has a deeply dyed liberal impulse beating in its veins around social and environmental causes, and a literary culture that has flourished like the blackberry thickets that mark misty Northwest woods. It is also one of the most bike-friendly, if not bike-crazed, urban spaces in the nation, as measured by commuters and bike lanes. All three of those forces are combined in Street Books, a nonprofit book service delivered by pedal-power for ‘people living outside,”’ as Ms. Moulton, the founder, describes the mission. …

“ ‘It’s not just a little novelty act — “Oh, that’s so Portland and cute,” ’ ” says Diana Rempe, a community psychologist. “Taking books to the streets, she said, sends the message that poor and marginalized people are not so different from the ‘us’ that defines the educated, literate mainstream of the city, whether in its hipsters, computer geeks or bankers.”

More here.

Photo: Thomas Patterson for The New York Times
Laura Moulton and Matt Tufaro in Portland, Ore. Ms. Moulton founded Street Books, a nonprofit book service for “people living outside.”

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Stealth

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 14, 2011| 4 Comments »

Asakiyume has alerted me to a great story about an anonymous library patron in Scotland who creates sculpture from old books and deposits them in libraries by stealth. The artist makes reference in his (her?) sculptures to Scottish mystery writer Ian Rankin and dragons and all sorts of literary things. You will flip over the pictures here.

Asakiyume says she likes the quotations that the mystery artist leaves with the sculptures: “I liked ‘Libraries are expensive,’ corrected to ‘Libraries are expansive,’ and also the quote from Robert Owen … (founder of some utopian communities) … ‘No infant has the power of deciding … by what circumstances (they) shall be surrounded.’ ”

The messages remind me of the mysterious tea cups of Anne Kraus, which I described here.

Now although Asakiyume knew I would love the book art, she may not have known that I have a family reputation for stealth projects, like secretly leaving a small Zimbabwean soapstone sculpture of parents and baby in John’s house after Meran gave birth.

Recently, I was telling Erik about a few of my escapades, and he got a look on his face suggesting that he was a little worried about the family he had married into.

When I was on the publicity committee for a local theater producing a musical about George Seurat, I purchased Seurat greeting cards and left them in stores’ card racks around town. They got sold, but the sales staff would have had to wing the price as there was no price on them.

Then there was the year that I sent a series of postcards from different cities under different names to an ice cream shop and in each card suggested a type of frozen dessert the shop should carry. Every card had a different reason why customers might want that dessert.

It worked, and the shop must have made money off the dessert as they stocked it for years afterward.

Photo: ThisCentralStation.com

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