Art du Jour 40

Here is what appears to be the second piece in a series.  If I get to number three I guess I’ll have to name it something.

Many years ago I purchased a book called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.  It is 700 plus pages of nightmare inducing insanity.  There are many different fonts, margins are all over the place, some pages are blank, some are written sideways or upside down.  It is filled with footnotes and appendices.  Notice I’m not telling you what this novel is about.  Frankly I’m not sure.  However, it is the most perfect mishmash of pages ever to repurpose into art.  I am not destroying a book, I am immortalizing it.  And in the process, not making it any less difficult to read, really.

My process starts with ripping out pages, cutting them up, painting them both sides with a mixture of acrylic paint and matte varnish, and sticking them on a canvas.  In a pleasing artistic fashion, or in a bizarre confusing mess.  Or both.  Then layers are added until it’s time to stop.  That’s actually the hard part, telling myself, okay, this is good, leave it alone and walk away.

This daylight saving thing should not be screwing up my schedule since I don’t even have one anymore, but things like eating and sleeping have not been by the clock this week.  I’m far behind in replying to comments and getting through e-mail and sometimes I watch crime shows first thing in the morning with my coffee.

There, that’s all the secrets you’re getting out of me today.  I have a book to cut up.  And that’s something I never thought I’d say.