"Found And Bound": The Bookwich

Prior to "Found and Bound", I had previously usurped an existing book as a host for my own collage, drawing, painting, and writing. My high school art teacher was fascinated by the fairly contemporary and popular "Artist Book" movement, and had my peers and I fashion old books and dairies into sketch books for an unconventional and thrifty new interpretation of the journal. It was a relished assignment because we were unorthodoxy (for the time and place, anyway) encouraged to do as much damage as possible to the books we selected. Exact-o knives and lighters were heavily employed (to any high schooler's rapture) and there was lots of ripping and tearing. However, in this previous attempt to develop an "Artist Book", I did not approach my modifications with much intent. The work had little relation as thematic collection of images or reflections, and the original literature had little bearing on the new content I added. My book floundered in confused, sticky collages, with no goals for re-imagining the book as a vehicle of expression, and ultimately remains unfinished. Consequently, the introduction of our "Found and Bound" project was an opportunity to revisit my previous endeavors of book altering, and grapple again with the concept of the book. I was also excited to begin developing the goals I want strive for in my photobook: creating a cohesive, well- articulated body of work.

Freshly examining the significance of books and photobooks in class discussions, readings and individual research, what became apparent to me, was the nature of the book as an object with physical and historical weight and dimension.
I am fascinated by the idea that the development of the photobook and photo album related directly to the family bible, as a sort of archaic scrap-book or familial record. I connected this information with memories of watching my high school Art Teacher's own "recycled" book projects evolve from scrap books of personal correspondences in used books, to hand-made books filled with tapped-in, also hand-made envelopes. Similarly, I was intrigued by the versatility of the "Artist Book" medium, specifically in regard to the vastly diverse but common emphasis on the form and construction of the book as a basic way to communicate. The structure of the "accordion"-style poetry book which we probed in class, as well as a plethora of inspiring examples I discovered online, like Xu Bing of North Carolina's "Tobacco Project: the red book" (http://cdm.reed.edu/cdm4/artbooks/) which is a tin composed of printed on cigarettes, continually revised my ideas of how to interpret and approach a book. I concluded that the "object-hood" of a book and its context in time were essential traits I had not recognized before. I also wanted to clearly and thoughtfully relate my original source to my re-envisioned book.

I tried various different combination of collage and added materials such as cardboard, food magazines, a dental text book, illustrated civil-war histories etc. to create interesting imagery which still stressed my book as concrete structure. However, I consistently found myself trapped in a overly intricate, murky narrative between food, teeth, and ambiguous historical references which was difficult fully expand throughout a whole book. Neither, did they have any bearing on the shape of the book, as they were all two-dimensional. These I was unable to connect all of my ideas succinctly (I displayed examples of these failures with my tooth-headed, civil war general collages). I felt thwarted by my book in similar ways to the first time I attempted book alteration, and tried a new approach. I decided that I wanted simply, to reference the form of the book as three-dimensional object with "Found And Bound". So, I just bailed on any deep, or meaningful metaphors or rich visual imagery, and made made my book into a sandwich; A "Bookwich!"

I sourced Dada and surrealist art-criticisms and definitions a la Duchamp and Magritte, in a glib transformation of a cheap, student's copy of "The Pembrabook of Art Masterpieces" into a towering, Ham sandwich ready-made. I felt this simplified, absurd representation of the book as object was successful because it dealt with the two main issues of physical space, and time-chronicling which I felt I had previously over-looked. I enjoyed the visceral nature of the product. It was apparent that time was flying during our critique because the whole room began to smell of onions as the sandwich aged. I am also satisfied that it is hard to transport and display. Similarly, it was

In retrospect, I would have preferred my book to be more elaborate, and I did not really mesh new content with old, but rather subverted the original material with my modifications. However, I still think my book adequately accomplishes my aims (Now I just have to figure out how to show it in the library). My frustrating and rewarding new understanding of this assignment makes me very excited, and a little intimidated by our semester long photobook project. It is not easy to create, and successfully express theses and themes throughout a large body of work, especially in book format. I am eager to get started.