In my previous post about Everett Ruess, I wrote that his remains have never been found. As it turns out that is now incorrect. Very recently his remains have been conclusively identified. The following link leads to a fascinating story from National Geographic Adventure:
Old Paper: New Works in Collage by William Budelman
Preparations are underway for the first ever fine art exhibit here at The Peninsula Bookman. The exhibit opens this Friday, August 21 at 7pm with a reception, the work will remain on display for two weeks.
Budelman is a collage artist who works a lot with found objects, he seems to have a particular attraction to old letters, used tickets, postage, and other sorts of daily debris. I have been saving interesting paper for him for a few years. Lots of books come into the store that are at the end of their useful lives. Some of them go to the recycle bin, but the interesting ones go into a pile for Bill. He has ended up with lots of otherwise destroyed illustrated childrens books, tattered atlases, water damaged cartoon books, and so on.
As I have an appreciation for his work, it gives me some satisfaction to know that I may be supplying something useful to the creative process. Much better for these otherwise doomed books to find new life as donors to a new composition altogether. I don’t know how much (if any at all) of the paper delivered out of the store will return on Friday night. Still, I do know that it must have served to expand colors on the palette at least a little bit.
I am quite interested in the book and paper art. When I write this, I must be careful to qualify that I am not talking about fine binding and handmade papers (though I have an interest in these things as well). What I am referring to here is art that employs paper and books themselves as the medium. There are artists that carve books, artists that cut pages and covers of books into figures like pop-up books, others that render them entirely into three dimensional sculpture, some do large installation sculptures built out of hundreds, sometimes thousands of whole books. Truly new life for old books. I am hoping that the Budelman exhibit will be the first of a series of shows featuring book and paper art.
Please join us on Friday evening if you are able. If you are not, you will still have the opportunity to view the work until Labor Day weekend.
Comments Off
