I was waiting for a meeting today, when I started talking with a woman in the waiting room. A couple of weeks ago, I had shown her one of my altered books. She "didn't get it", until today when she had time to ask and I had time to explain. This is what I came up with that finally got her to that point of "Oh, I see". Not agreement or approval, just clarity.
"Think of the book as a canvas, over and around which I do multi-media art. I usually have a theme, e.g. "My Favorite Things" or "Create" -- both from a round robin I just completed -- or "In Living Colour" or "My Book of Shadows" both personal books I'm working on. Why? For the sheer joy of creative expression. I love words and I love art. Once I have an idea, I usually flip through the book looking for passages that work with the theme, and I build the art on the page around that. And no, I'm not defacing a book. My goodness, I was almost sent to the principal's office in the second grade ('almost' only because my Mom's classroom was just a short walk past the principal's office and much more effective) for 'defacing' a book. As a professor, whose basic tools are words in books and journals, tearing that first page out of my first book to alter was so traumatic my instructor had to hold my hand. As many other altered book artists have pointed out, most often we're SAVING books that would otherwise end up on the trash heap. Most of my books come from the dollar shelf at the public library. "
I've seen this discussed on several altered book discussion groups. I just didn't understand the big deal until it happened to me. Empathy can be both instructive and enlightening.
