As my only studio course this semester I took an artists' books class with one of my favourite teachers, George Walker. If you're at OCAD, I highly recommend his classes, as he's one of the most enthusiastic and inspiring people I've ever had the chance to learn from.
The first of our two major projects was to create an altered book using discarded ones from the Reference Library, which is a massive library in downtown Toronto. I was lucky enough to snag a book of Sylvia Plath's poetry. My basic idea for the piece was to visualize the way a book exists differently wherever (and of course by whoever) it is read. In this case, I placed her text within the Canadian landscape, as played by Toronto and a map.
The photos were taken by our lovely and talented class assistant, Amanda, who's work you really need to check out.
The book now has a permanent home at the Reference Library, and you can even take it out like a regular library book! It's official title is Their Shadows must Cover Canada, which is a line from "Crossing the Water." The full poem is pasted to small photos tied to a little envelope, and you can see it in the second picture.
I've got a ton of photos of all the little details of the book, and its other pages, but I still miss the little guy. Sometimes it's hard to let a piece go.
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