thin ice

My second altered book should be on its way back to me after a short spell away in Makay. The local show decided to include artist books as part of its art exhibition so "Thin Ice" got its first outing along with another book made collaboratively by Helen Malone and myself " Paper,Scissors, Uluru".

"Thin Ice" The original novel by Alan Ford has been altered and transformed into an artist book about global warming and climate change. Only the original title remains, covers and contents altered for the new context.

The cover has been incised and painted to show a cracked surface revealing the hot core inside. It is covered in matt Perspex to refer back to the title while the insides cut away and replaced by test tubes filled with small graphs and research material from “The Copenhagen Diagnosis” dealing with carbon dioxide emissions, global warming and sea level predictions. This material is stored in test tubes to emphasise that it is of scientific origin and not a matter of belief. The test tubes can be removed to allow the text to be read if required.

"to germs"

detail of a surface on "to germs"

The new year has brought me a burst of post Christmas energy (not quite sure how, but I think a beautiful book Robyn Foster lent me might have helped). "Art made from Books" includes many inspirational book artists including Pamela Paulsrud. Some of her work has a very painterly approach to her book sculptures and this was all the excuse for an exploration into the altered book side of the book arts I needed.

An old discarded book from our local library "to germs" formed the basis for the book. I had originally picked up the book because of references to some bacteria that were of particular interest to me but also because it reminded me of my first career as a trainee bacteriologist many years ago. So there is a bit of history there to inform some of the marks and text and added pieces I brought to the sculpture.

My previous work was with milk and cream and the bugs that make it go off, both good and bad. Woodford Dairy Co-op was one of my first excursions in the field out of the lab, testing milk and cream as it came in from the farms. The samples that were off were sent to the lab for testing and the bacteria grown on petri dishes and test tubes for identification. The marks show the colonies of bacteria that grew in the media. The use of wax and china graph pencils was perfect to capture those early memories.

the reverse side of the cover

The added bits of hardware keep this highly contagious  sculpture safe and secure.

flat side with test tube

top spine showing title

test tube with fake bacteria culture

No it was not these bacteria directly above that interested me but the heliobacter pylori in the previous detail.

the other flat side

mixed media 

from above

 I've enjoyed this area of exploration and while there's a lot of room for improvement, I'll keep working in this area for a bit. The altered book probably could have been  more substantially changed and three-dimensional and I'm not too sure about the knock-kneed stick standing in for the laboratory retort stand, but I'm quite happy with the surfaces and the paint .