If I met someone in a pub and they told me their job was cutting up old books to make sculptures, I would be horrified. I love books. I love them for their content, their covers, their smell. I love everything about them. I have a sprawling book collection at home and find it impossible to throw them away or part with them once I’ve finished reading. My favourites are the ones with the broken spines and well worn pages. Those are the books I return to again and again.

But over the last couple of years I’ve been introduced to a number of book sculptors and have been fascinated by their work. Phiona Richard’s ornaments and artifacts are beautiful. She takes books that are at the end of their lives and makes them into intriguing and interactive sculptures. They look delicate and fragile but are actually quite robust and tactile. The pages are shaped and pieced together using traditional needlework techniques.

Over the next couple of months Phiona is running a number of workshops where you can get a feel of working with paper and create some pretty ornaments and Christmas decorations. Each workshop takes place in Nottingham. For further details and to book visit Phiona’s website at
www.rarenotions.co.uk.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 6:08 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.