Monthly Archives: June 2010

Book Sculpture

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The first Playing With Books inspired project I finished (but not the first I started) was a sculpture of a pear. First I cut a template:

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And got cutting:

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It was a relatively thin book, but as I got toward the end I found there was a little bit of creep from the line imposed by the template. On a thicker book this could be much harder to compensate for. When I finished, I fanned the book out:

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Opening up the book took more work than I expected. The spine was very well made and resisted being bent back on itself. The instructions were for a paperback book, and while this is a paperback it has a spine construction more like a hardback, with stitching and glue rather than just glue. But after much folding and bending I got it to open fully:

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I dabbed ink along the edge of the pages before gluing the front and back pages together and clamping them while they dried. I’ve since added a little twig as a stem.

It came out rather large for a pear. The instructions recommended making the template the full height of the book to avoid having to cut through the spine. I think two smaller pears would have been better. But the full height would be fine for a vase shape. I may cut this one up again. Depends if I can unstick the front and back pages without damaging it too much.

There are plenty of other shapes to try. I like the idea of a fairy ring of mushrooms. I also like the topographic effect you can get by cutting sections of pages in an unopened book. Perhaps with added castle…

Playing With Books

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Warning: Look away now if the idea of cutting up books bothers you.

I’ve mentioned now and then that my day job is writing books. Some of them have been translated into other languages. Most of the time I get copies of the foreign language editions. Sometimes I get far more copies than I have time to find homes for – or else I only have one or two from a series and it seems unfair to lob them one someone when they can’t get the missing book/s. The growing towers of boxes filled with books has been getting to be a problem lately.

So when I spotted this book on a blog I got very excited:

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I lost my reluctance to cut up books waaaaay back when I worked for a travel guidebook company, where we sometimes chopped up books to make them easier to work with, and where it was recommended that travellers cut out the sections of a guidebook you didn’t need, to reduce weight in your luggage. (The books were sewn and glued so that they wouldn’t fall apart if you did this.)

Also, working in the book publishing industry, you learn that millions of books are pulped each year. Turning a book into art or practical items seems a better destination, compared to that.

I also lost any delusions that old books have value after talking to an antiques valuer. Most books have little or no value as collectables. Some do, of course, so when in doubt it’s best to check before hacking up a book. (Unfortunately, the prettier the book the more you want to cut it up, but the more likely it has value as collectable.)

Anyway… you can’t really see it in the pic above, but there are a LOT of bookmarks in the book. Here are just a few of the projects that I want to try:

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Envelopes. I also want to make cards and gift tags.

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Mats made of rolled up pages. I can see place mats and a table runner in my future. Maybe coasters. Maybe even covers for a bookbinding project.

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Various ball-shaped ornaments. I might do more non-Christmassy Christmas decorations this year.

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And – I’m sure you’ve seen this before – books cut up to form sculptural objects.

I spent most of the last weekend trying out projects in the book. I have four of them in various unfinished states, and one completed one, so there’s going to be plenty of creative blog fodder in the coming weeks.