Book Projects
Some years ago I started reading some of my mothers old books. Perhaps in an attempt to connect to her somehow, to hold what she held. Books were her world and indirectly mine. A ferocious reader and employed by the library, words were her way to feed her inner world and cope with her outer world. As I am reading them they start falling apart and new ideas form on the possibilities of using the world of books in my work.
Books can educate, create opportunity and inspire. They can enhance critical thinking and knowledge. However my relationship with books is not straight forward. My mother gave me a love of books and all that comes with reading for which I am grateful. But often for her it was about what she read to keep up her intellectual status. When she spotted me reading a detective or a romantic novel rolling eyes were usually the answer. Unconsciously I have discovered that I am always trying to catch up with what she read and I am supposed to read. There is a constant search between what I perceive as book snobbery and being true to my own interest in reading.
I started to spend time in second hand book shops where I live and on my travels. In my search for old books I look for interesting titles, poems, dedications, handwritten names, ripped pages or even smell. These books carry the history of the persons who held, treasured and touched them, leaving behind hints of their lived lives. Together they inspire me into my own interpretation to find a poetic narrative and finding abstract ways of thinking.
They are conversation starters to inner worlds of memories, feelings and experiences.
For the Book Portraits series I change the appearance of a book to be more anonymous. They are put into what I call a ‘ situation’ and photographed with an Iphone after which I handprint them as a silkscreen. The books become personalities, sitters or actors to appear as a metaphors recognizable to the viewer themselves with their own interpretation. To give meaning.