By Caitlin Reed
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| Charlene Farley's altered book. |
When thinking about what I wanted to do with my dialogue book, I had
to consider many things. The first altered book we completed for class
was the first thing I looked at. In this assignment I took on the doing a
random, creative approach to our first altered book. In this process, I
felt myself wanting to make a theme, or something I could relate to personally
even though I had done it completely random just picking out a verb and
applying it to any random page I opened. I have used this book to practice
new ideas I have, especially when I am going to apply it to my dialogue book.
As I observed the other altered books in class, especially from
Terri’s former student, Charlene, who created the beautiful altered book with
the historical religious pictures with the cut book and tied down pages, I
really saw the idea of how we chose to alter a book is how each one of us
relates to it. When each of us views a book, any book, we all can find
and see a different message. That is because like Hyde would say – we
each have a “gift”. A “gift” that we each give and share with each other
in order to keep the “gift” moving and continuing to grow. As we work in class
on our dialogue books and all share with each other our ideas of what we want
to do to our books and why each of chose the book we did, I can really see the
concept of the “gift” constantly moving. Another idea that is very
prevalent throughout all our work on the dialogue and altered books is that we
are each telling a story through our books. Kathryn, who has been
creating a beautiful, authentic and creative alteration to an already beautiful
book that relates to her, has taken a page that spoke of a flower and a heart
and she is going to put a flower that her boyfriend gave her because he and the
flower are close to her heart. I found this idea to be very inspirational
and touching, supporting the ideas of how we are taking out dialogue books and
applying them to ourselves and our own thoughts the book brings to us.
The dialogue books have grown out of our own experimenting with
collage, images and words. Blocking out and emphasizing the words and
images that really stick out and send a message to us. We have been
combining our existing ideas and experience with new and original ways using
paper, paints, images and even polish, just about anything we could think of
using. We have even burned pages to express the emotions we feel. I
have really enjoyed expressing my self through these creative processes.
I feel that I have had a very similar experience to Caitlin. Like her, when I was doing our first altered book assignment, I chose a book "Fahrenheit 451" because it was about destroying and burning books, and just went to town doing whatever I could with it. This time around, however, I really wanted to take the time to get to know my book and to create a real relationship with it. This time around, I am much happier with the product that is unfolding before my eyes, mainly because I feel like I have truly made it my own, with my own interpretation.
ReplyDeleteAs Caitlin said, "the dialogue books have grown out of our own experimenting with collage, images and words." This time around, I really took the time to explore a different relationship with my book, which I think has been made easier by the fact that the book is shorter and it was a poem turned into a picture book, which allowed me to really create my own story aside from the one told through the original images. Looking back at how my book first was when I picked it up for the first time, I feel that it now tells an entirely new story, one that is my own, and is special to me.
I'm really excited to see the finished products that everyone in the class presents next week, because I feel like I will be able to understand my classmates a little more through the story and dialogue they have with their own books.
I hope everyone does not mind that I be self-focused on this topic because, as many probably saw in class, I feel kind of weird about this dialogue book activity. Like Caitlin said, Charlene’s book was amazing and I think everyone is putting a lot of hard work and careful thought into their dialogue books. And I like the way Caitlin describes our interaction with these books as creating a story that personally relates to us. Even doing something as simple as tearing apart a book and putting it back together says a lot about how someone views that work. But everyone is doing more than just tearing something apart, they are adding to that work and creating something new out of it. I see people working with paints, glue, pictures, scissors, and a lot more. This is why I feel kind of weird about my work.
ReplyDeleteI guess, unlike Caitlin, I feel like I have not been inspired enough. In comparison to what everyone else is doing, my work seems rather banal. All I am doing is cutting out pages from one work and attaching them to another to contrast how we verbally describe something with how we visually see it. I will also be using highlighter to emphasize descriptions but that is pretty much it. It is not that I think this project is not interesting or meaningful or does not create a story/dialogue with the work as I would not be doing it if I thought that. I simply see this as far too (for the lack of a better word) academic when compared to what I am seeing from others. Of course, comparison is a dangerous thing to do here as nothing artistic is truly equivalent to anything else. Admittedly, it is probably my own mind that limits me in thinking that just because something is academic it cannot also be artistic. Moreover, I like simplicity and the academic feel as much of my time in college was spent creating notes, highlighting, or comparing different works. Perhaps it is because this kind of work feels so natural to me that I feel like I am not putting the same amount of effort into this as I would other things. I am not really experimenting as much as everyone else but then again, I do not really want to.
And thinking about it like that, one reason I like doing this project is that it does show something about me. It shows how I view things in contrast and enjoy the simple. But more than anything, I like seeing everyone else’s work and how they like to work with their materials and ideas. I just hope that on REDday what I do lives up to what everyone else will do. And I wonder if people will see the academic as laziness or artistic. Regardless, it has been interesting to see how personal everyone makes their project, especially when we know everyone is going to see it.
Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteWow, first of all, Charlene's altered book is awesome--I am so impressed and I was immediately drawn to the photos in your post! I agree that the altering book process has been eye opening and has allowed me to create a piece of art that brings out the meaning of the book I chose. I am able to take what the book means to me and create it into a creative piece which is pretty cool. Also, I agree that Kathryn's book is awesome and very inspirational! Everyone's books so far have been really cool to look at and compare to one another. You can really see everyone's personal meaning of the books being placed in the alteration.
I feel like for a lot of us this was a very powerful prjoect for us. I like that you were going for a theme which is something that is important to me as well. It really showed through our works our various passions and even some of our worries.
ReplyDeleteI also think it is awesome how you mentioned Charlene's Relic-Esque altered book. I was considering doing some kind of commentary on religion as well, however as soon as seeing Charlene's work I knew that she had nailed my commentary on the head. I love the juxtaposition of book destruction and relic creation. In history typically the destruction and/or creation of the two typically go hand in hand. Seeing how the destruction of one influenced the creation of the other was truly fascinating!
I also want to use this as an opportunity to let you know how beautiful your book was and how its message came through bright and clear!
Charlene's altered book was beautiful and very inspiring. It was amazing to see what she was able to create from the book and was extremely inspirational. It gave me ideas on what to my altered book. I decided to do Dr. Suess's book Oh, The Place You'll Go. I was able to relate to the words in the book in a way I never was able to as a child. By relating to the words, I was able figure out how I wanted to alter my book. Like Josh said, this was an extremely powerful project, especially for me. This book made me really think of my future. This book states how although you may not know where you are going, it is okay. There are ups and downs but eventually you will be able to "move mountains". Currently, I do not have much plans for my future. I am about to graduate and have my whole life ahead of me but have no clue what I want to do. I never knew how much relating to this book would relate to me and my future. This project was extremely powerful for me.
ReplyDeleteThe dialogue books was a unique process, one that I struggled with more than I initially thought I would. From the start I wanted to work with "The Giving Tree" and "Oh The Places You'll Go" - but when I was flipping through the pages, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Both books were gifts, one from my aunt and the other from my mom. They both have special messages written on the inside for my birthday and also my high school graduation. I ended up choosing "Falling Up", which looks like one big coloring book. I thought it would be fun to work with the white space on the pages. Having a discussion with the book was an interesting experience - something that I feel you could only understand if you actually do it. In my opinion it'll give you a new found appreciation for books.
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