"wrinkles"

"Wrinkles" is a smallish book around A5 in size. The wrinkled pages of various types of black and white paper ask to be altered but not reduced. The viewer can alter, tear, fold or change a page without taking any paper away from the book. A few years ago, I encountered a large book by Tim Mosley of beautiful woodblock prints that uses this most interactive of processes. It seems to combine well by extending the processes into my other black works which also use apertures and hinged openings to reveal other textures and colours of paper.

Most of the papers have been waxed prior to wrinkling. Following on a few books about skin, this seems quite a logical direction to follow. Like my aging old skin, the pages are so fragile and easy to peel back. The many thicknesses and textures each with its series of "injuries" mimic the journey through life as we get older.

This book will get more and more complex as the audience reacts to the pages and make changes. These layers of change are a metaphor for life and aging. Different textures and weights of paper reflect the passing of time in the rich collage of life.
I have started the process of making changes to each page and have decided that for this book I will have some damage control and limit the audience to personal book artists I know and not let a gallery audience participate in the change process. I must be more of a control freak than I thought but maybe I can be less precious about the books once I have made a few more. 

The tactile qualities of the papers are of course impossible to convey other than by touch. Making the alterations to the pages forces the viewer to physically interact with the paper and experience the crunchy, silky, soft, and whisper thin tactility first hand. BUT yes, at this stage, it would be terrible to go too far and destroy the book in the process.