A Little Red Book (part 1)

I can't resist wired little books - they are just begging to be altered, aren't they? This one was given out as a free gift by the post office. The papers were thin, but I glued several together so that they were thick and would not wrinkle.

Then I started painting the pages with the last paint on the palette left over from other projects. To be honest, I had no clue in what direction I wanted to go with this little book. Then I started to work on the cover, and wrote a message in the layer of gesso that I laid down first. From that moment on I knew that this was going to be a kind of journaling altered book.

I liked the idea of adding text to a page with a personal meaning to me, but not obvious for the reader. Leaving the reader the freedom to add his own meaning and interpertation to the page, the words and the images. While altering other books, I sometimes cut out a line of text. Something that triggered a memory, or a wise saying.

Or I tried finding poetry in a piece of torn text: found poetry. Like in this page (above) which I tore from an old book about a woman growing up in the previous century. The lines say:

finally

I would

meet
beneath an umbrella
the whole world

A little poem made up from almost one sentence alone. I like simplicity...

And sometimes I started with just glueing in images that I altered a bit and as serendipity occurred, within a day or so I would find a line of text that would just fit in.
Easy and simple. Not too much thinking. That is how I like it.