Sunday, August 4, 2013

I was first drawn to old books when I started creating Altered Art Books about 9 years ago. A vintage book's gorgeous covers and dated fonts were hard for me to resist and if not enough, the earthy smell of an old book could draw me in like a heavy pheromone. Always waffling between my guilt of tearing up old books (for artful purposes) and justifying it with an earth-friendly, Go-Green mentality, I never experienced regret until very recently. "Romola" by George Eliot. After removing several brittle pages to cut into delicate strips, a calling card slipped out from it's pages... haunting me from the past, a handwritten note. I will never handle an old book with the same disregard again.







   

A nest that I created implementing "paper shred" from an old book.




This is the front of Miss Ferry's calling card.

And her intimate inscription... how I wish I knew who she gave this gift to...




A gorgeous drawing that is in the front of the book.