Bits and Pieces

So I had this epiphany one day concerning old books - they are an awesome craft medium. I was so convinced that they were this undiscovered and cheap resource that I started blindly collecting and saving them. This process quickly escalated. For storage reasons, I ended up only saving the covers. With quite a stockpile of these book covers, I still hadn't come up with a function for them. I toyed with the idea of mosaic-ing them into a tabletop of sorts, but that project never became a reality. Then, with a little help from this book, it hit me ... I should turn to my first and strongest love for inspiration - Video Games!
8-bit art from salvaged book covers was born!

Obviously, as much as I love some of the current or recently current games out there (video game obsessed posts to come!), I knew that capturing next-gen graphics with cut up book covers wasn't going to happen. So I turned to the NES classics - Mario, Mega Man, Link. But first I had to transform the book covers of varying sizes into almost uniform and manageable bits. Now I know that I am a librarian, and maybe it seems wrong that I cut up books, but let me tell you ... it is so therapeutic. That probably means it is wrong, but eh. So I began cutting up the covers into half inch squares. The thing is, once I started cutting, I found it somewhat hard to stop. Before I knew it, I had a bit of a surplus. Sarah, on the other hand, has referred to it as a "poop-load of crap." Now I think that calling something a "poop-load of crap" is a bit redundant, but I am told that in this instance "poop" is being used to describe a quantity, while "crap" is referring to the item in question, so really she isn't even talking about feces. Yea right. All I know is that when we move out, and we have to have a couple of boxes dedicated to my cut up book covers, she is going to be angry. That'll teach her to throw poop around. Once I had the bits, I had to come up with the image. I started to look at old Nintendo characters, and began dividing the image up into a grid.

With the covers cut up into bits, and the image chosen and gridded, I was ready for the fun part. The plan was to paint a canvas, and then to glue the different book bits on in the shape of a NES character. Not hard at all. Here is one coming together:

I was really happy with this first one, and I ended up making a bunch more for close friends and family. (Below are some others that I have made.) Eventually I decided that it would be cool if I cut the half inch pieces into quarter inch pieces, thereby allowing me to use smaller canvases. You cannot really tell from these pics, but Duck Hunt and the one of Mega Man shooting are actually composed of quarter inch pieces. I found that cutting the half inch pieces into quarter inch pieces further appease my dominant anal-retentive side.

I have also decided to start trying to sell these things on etsy.com, which is a very cool site that only sells objects which are either vintage or handmade. These are the two that I'll be putting up for sale on that site.

So, when I am not giving books to children to read, I am destroying books to honor a childhood passion. Or playing Halo.