On Tuesday I had the opportunity to go to a workshop that was put on by Terrilynn Quick, an altered book artist and CSUSM alumni. She brought lots of examples of current books and ones she had done in the past. The possibility with these books is as far as your creativity can take you. She had books that flipped out from the inside, ones that were cut into shapes like an oak tree leaf, ones that she taped, glued, painted, colored, used markers, pencils and crayons, and any other object you could think of. She liked to have a theme to her book and you might look at it and not be able to guess what the theme was but if she told you and then you looked through it you would probably be able to catch on. We had the chance to make our own at this workshop and again we were limited to what we brought or what was in the workshop room. I enjoyed this project more than the zines because I feel like with this altered book concept you are expressing yourself, creating a theme, a different way of viewing something, and you are recycling. For example I used an old accounting book I would a) never use again and b) couldn’t sell back so I guess got my full use out of the book. I really wanted to cut mine into the shape of a pint glass but without there being a saw I was limited to using scissors and it was very difficult to cut the cover. The theme of my book became beer because that is what my artist book is about and it was just kind of on my mind during the workshop. No I am not an alcoholic, as much of my work revolves around beer; I am just a true beer connoisseur. Here are a few of the pages I worked on.
