Amazing artwork created from old books

Miss Blackwell trawls second hand bookshops looking for novels and then spends months carefully slicing each one into a spectacular paper model.

The 33-year-old only uses the pages she delicately cuts or removes from the book itself.

The models look as if they 'grow' naturally from the spine and pages of the book.

Miss Blackwell finds inspiration for each model from the book title or a paragraph or picture inside.

Her model Through the Looking Glass is cut from the book of the same name by Lewis Carroll and Wild Flowers is cut from A Field Guide to Wild Flowers in Britain.

She has also made intricate models based on fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson and recreated buildings taken from guide books.

The avid reader buys her books in bulk and decides which ones to use at a later date. She is occasionally given books by family or friends or finds them on the street.

Her London studio is packed full of hundreds of old books ready for her to read and consider - but only a few will ever be used.

"I trawl second-hand bookshops and sometimes spend hours looking through the books," she said. "The book has to resonate with me somehow, either in an illustration, or in part of the story. I need that spark of inspiration.

"I began feeling guilty about cutting up the books but I had the integrity that I would create something magical from it.

"My reasoning is that half of the books have been sat on shelves for years anyway, or that they were about to be thrown away and destroyed forever. It's very complex working on such a small-scale. They can take up to two months to complete."

Miss Blackwell used to make art from old household objects such as clothes but changed to paper after travelling around the far east.

She saw paper being used in spiritual ceremonies "to mark the passing of the dead" and says it reminded her of her own work - giving old objects a "new lease of life".

"Around this time, I found a book in a second-hand book shop in Thailand, which had a history marked by it's previous owner in the shape of Thai writing pencilled in the margin," she said.

"This was the beginning of what has become knows as my book-cut sculptures."

courtesy of The telegraph 

Useful Ways of recycling old books

As we live in a changing world and books are now becoming a thing of the past and online books and e-readers are the 'new thing' where you can read whatever your want without sourcing or carrying around an old heavy book. So what to do with these old books apart from turning them into loo roll.... 

I always think its a shame when I see old books thrown away. I spend hours going round boot sales and charity shops looking for them. So I thought of ways of reusing them for something more practical after seeing a table in a old book shop in Hay-on-Wye which had an old flat piece of wood supported by big old books stacked up paying the purpose of the table legs. I thought this was really clever and unique way of displaying them and playing on the context of where books are found and what the purpose of them are and the idea of a book as an object and not the use. 

So I thought I would research on the ways in which they have been used. 

Here in a library in Delft they have used old books as sort of bricks to support there help desk. 

 As a Shelf! Wow floating books!

Old books as planters! Italian company Gartenkultur makes these unwanted book planters by drilling holes into them and sealing the pot with insulating plastic so the water does not run into the pots. Its so sweet that paper comes from trees and then the trees can get back from to their roots literally.

Here Artist Laura Cahill creates useful vases and furniture out of old books. Books may appear to be out dated but here they are truly modern. 

Images thanks to lifewithinme blog.  

Art and Design disciplines and the ability to identify their boundaries

To be a professional artist in this day and age you really need to cross many disciplines and boundaries. therefor I believe that to survive as an artist you need to access a range of disciplines to create a piece of work that is interesting and in touch with the viewer of today.


Drawing and editing 

In my second year of University I came across the problem, when I produced a set of illustrations that complimented poems from strong women who release their emotional side when they wrote about their partners, such as Silvia Plath writing about Ted. During a group crit when my work was displayed in frames with the phrase under each work, it was suggested that the work should be scanned into the computer and edited in Photoshop to make it more modern and in touch with the viewer. the colours would be changed and the size adjusted. 

Why I love old things

I was puzzled when a friend came round today. They simply said "Why do you love old things?" My reply was "I don't know". I have been thinking about this question all day and tried to convince myself it was because they look nice or I like themes. It's not. It's more than that. I thought of possibilities

1. It looks nice.
2. I want to save bits of history.
3. I want to be different.
4. I want to be perceived as being different.
5. They remind me of my mother.
6. I appreciate the process of making the item.
7. Need to create a space in time.
8. I create world where all these
9. I love sourcing and adding to my collection.
10. I am a obsessive person.

Recording a Person's Appearance

Silhouette Picture of a Gentleman with a Long Pipe

Early 19th century

In rosewood frame

10.75 inches wide, 13.75 inches high

Étienne de Silhouette (July 8, 1709 – 1767) was a french General of finances under Louis XV. Times were hard and saving money was high on the gender. he was in control of the budget. the ways in which he tried to save money were to cut the expense of portraits and introduced the fast technique of silhouettes. this was very cost effective way of recording the way someone looked. the trend took off and people could afford a way of creating artwork for their homes. Although the effect was amazing and a likeness was achieved many people called it a cheap and had a penny-pinching manner towards it.

Silhouette

A silhouette is the image of a person, object or scene consisting of the outline shape of the object with the silhouetted object usually being black. Traditionally, the silhouette is a form of artwork, the word is french from the  18th century and applied to portraits or other pictorial representations cut from thin black card. Silhouette images may be created in any artistic media, but the tradition is of cutting portraits from black card.

'The camera never Lies'

Do photographs reflect reality?
Since the invention of photography in 1839 people have used photographs to record and represent cultures. the photographs reflect the photographers own way of seeing the world which in turn is being reinterpreted by me which surely depends on my attitude and knowledge?