I thought it would be interesting to design a project around an authorless book, in which everyone would have written something. Its purpose is the process. Writing is interesting because it is a process.
Described as an interactive installation that celebrates and ritualizes the passage from handwriting to digital writing, Bidjocka’s oversize notebooks have been traveling the world, inviting people to write on the blank pages “as if theirs were the last words to be written by hand”.
Has it really already been almost a year since I first read Moby-Dick? It seems like just a short time ago I was wrapped up in Melville’s language and subsequently discovering Matt Kish’s illustration project, One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick. Matt finished his whale of a project in January, and his artwork is being published this fall to coincide with the 160th anniversary of the novel’s publication.
Completely self-taught and refusing to set any boundaries for the kinds of images he would make, Kish used a wide variety of materials, including found paper, ballpoint pens, markers, paint, crayons, ink, and watercolors to create art inspired by lines from every single page of the 552-page Signet Classics paperback edition of Moby-Dick. A hallmark of the project has been his use of pages torn from old, discarded books. Layering images on top of existing words and images, Kish has crafted a work that aptly echoes the layers of meaning in Melville’s narrative. His approach is deliberately low-tech, a sort of counter-response to the increasing popularity of born-digital art and literature. Kish started the project in August 2009 and spent nearly every day for eighteen months toiling away in a small closet converted into an art studio.
I love bookshelves in all forms, even if the “shelves” are really just stacks of books next to my couch because there’s no actual shelf space left. I would much rather have a collection of books as the centerpiece of a room than a television. But given that the majority of my books are in boxes 3,000 miles away, I know just how much space plays a part in whether or not books are on display. When I stumbled across stacked paperback wallpaper earlier this week, I couldn’t help but daydream about how neat it would look in a small space. But the wallpaper lacks that handpicked quality that bookshelves have, and that is why I fell head over heels when I saw the Ideal Bookshelf paintings by artist Jane Mount.
I paint ‘ideal bookshelves’: people’s favorites of all time, within a genre or from a particular period in their lives.
As someone who does a lot of design work, I enjoy the process of turning graphics into ‘art’. And I love that a book is something created very personally and then mass-produced in order to affect many other people very personally. I group and paint them to turn them back into something very personal and intimate.”
Mount creates the paintings out of the reader’s choice of 10-20 books. It would be difficult to narrow down, but I know The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Bird by Bird, Interpreter of Maladies, and The Giving Tree would be a few of the ones on my list. What books would you choose?
Posted by Angelaon February 16, 2010 Inspiration /
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I don’t know what bookstore I was in when I first came across the illustrated version of The Elements of Style, but I know I was with Pam, and I know I dragged her over to the display so I could show her the artwork inside.
So I was thrilled to read The 99 Percent’s interview with the talent behind all that loveliness, Maira Kalman. In “The Pursuit of Happiness”, Kalman talks about how she became an artist, what inspires her, and her latest project. But I especially love what she has to say about the art of storytelling in relation to her illustrations:
I think everything I do is narrative, but it’s not just a story, it’s a movie – a movie of my life. And usually I’m trying to put too much information in one image. But because I thought that I would be a writer, and that’s how I started out – as a writer and not as an artist – then when I decided to start drawing, it was going to be narrative. It’s things that are from my life, and things I’ve seen, and things I’ve seen in books. It’s always telling stories.”
Picture Book Report is an extended love-song to books. Fifteen illustrators will reach out to their favorite books and create wonderful pieces of art in response to the text that has moved them, shaped them, or excited them. [...] Together we will try to excite readers both new and old and capture some of that magic of storytelling.”
Check out the project to see how the artists continue the tradition of illustration and books by sharing their thoughts, creative processes, and own stories.
Posted by Angelaon December 09, 2009 Inspiration, Reading /
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This short film from the New Zealand Book Council combines the art of paper cutting with stop-motion animation to promote books and reading.
Drawing inspiration from Maurice Gee’s classic New Zealand novel, Going West, the intricate video took eight months to complete. More about the inspiration behind the project from Book Council chief executive Noel Murphy:
The idea that lies at the centre of this project is that reading is an activity that surprises, delights, challenges and ignites the imagination.
We wanted to grab people’s attention for just one moment in the hurly burly world of modern media and direct them to the adventure that can be had in one’s own head at the flick of a page.
Posted by Angelaon December 03, 2009 Design, Inspiration /
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One of my dreams is to learn about printmaking and book arts, so when I saw the video for The Complex of All of These, it took my breath away with its letterpress, handmade paper, and handsewn bindings. The project was done at the Women’s Studio Workshop, a visual arts organization in New York.
Posted by Angelaon September 24, 2009 Design, Inspiration /
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Is it destruction or creation? That’s the first question that comes to my mind when I see books being transformed into works of art from sculptures to furniture. But as the blog Dark Roasted Blend shows, the answer lies in the bittersweet art of cutting up a book. The pieces below caught my eye with their beauty and creativity.
And while this project didn’t involve cutting books, it made me smile because I remember when I tried color coding my bookshelves and then couldn’t find anything.
