Building bookshelves

Check out the neighbours! Love the ceramic bookcase nestled into this building in Amsterdam - that's my kind of architecture. I wouldn't mind looking at that view either, beats your average brick wall. Thanks BookshelfPorn.

Literary love

Found this on etsy - the online treasure trove where you can snap up original creations by all kinds of clever and talented people - dangerously addictive! I Think I'm In Love wood paper print by rosiemusic.

Post me!

Great gift idea for the bookophile....a beautiful boxed set of 100 classic covers from Penguin Books. Frame, them post them, use them as coasters, gift cards or just salivate over them. Love love. I found mine at Quintessential Duck Egg Blue in Balmain.

Golden Books glamour

Remember Golden Books ...Who have imagined someone would turn them into a princess gown one day...? Check out Ryan Novelline's website to see how he constructed this gown from the pages of hundreds of fairytale stories. 

Art + storytelling = relief

A picture is worth a thousand words. 
It's said that the modern use of this phrase originates from an article by an American, Fred R Barnyard, in an advertising trade journal in the early 1920s, promoting the use of images in ads that appeared on the sides of trams. He later used the same phrase in another ad and called it a Chinese proverb - so that 'people would take it seriously'. 
So there you go - Confucius scores again.
Whatever the origins, a cliche is a cliche because it's true, and sometimes a picture finds the words to tell the story that people can't. Proceeds of all sales of this print by artist James White go to Japanese earthquake relief efforts.

Little Red's makeover

Swedish artist Daniel Egnéus has brought Little Red Riding Hood back to life with an 'ethereal' and 'romantic' 21st Century makeover, in conjunction with a new movie version of the classic story. No doubt fairytale collectors will send this 80-page hard cover, described as an art book-graphic novel hybrid, straight to the pool room.
Egnéus says that in his version of the Brothers Grimm fable the characters are elegant and upper class. 
'Making them more pompous and living in enormous castles allowed me to have more fun. I purposely dressed them in extremely big clothing.'
One image, set in palatial surrounds, shows Red and her mother wearing Pre-Raphaelite-style gowns five metres in length. And in this iteration, the wolf adds 'debonair' to his scary, calculating character. 
'The wolf has the clothing of Casanova,' says Egnéus, who dressed him in an elaborate, floor-length cape and cavalier hat with a plume. 
Run ladies run! We've all come across wolves of that description in the wee small hours of a Sydney Friday night...

Curious George

Recognise this face? The gorgeous illustrations? Curious George, the famous storybook monkey who was spirited away from Africa and escaped his captor to lead a life of adventure travelling the globe (moved to America, joined the circus) and beyond (became an astronaut), has delighted kids everywhere with his cheeky exploits.
But his creators' exploits were equally epic and they're being celebrated in an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York. Curious George Saves the Day: The Art of Margaret and H.A. Rey uncovers the real life dramas of the artists whose lives played out against the dark historical backdrop of the Holocaust.
English readers may know the little rascal as George but as 'Zozo' - UK publishers changed his name thinking it would be disrespectful to have a mischievous monkey with the same name as the sitting king. 
Pity, I reckon the Royals could do with a little monkey magic.

The book surgeon

Thanks to my good friend the Bandit for sending me this. Amazing! 

American artist Brian Dettmer uses knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve - one page at a time - the insides of old encyclopaedias, illustrated books and medical journals, reinventing books as an artform.

'My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception,' he says.
'The book’s intended function has decreased and the form remains linear in a non-linear world. By altering physical forms of information and shifting preconceived functions, new and unexpected roles emerge.'

You can see more of his work here.

I'm assured no books were harmed in the creation of these artworks. They had all passed of natural causes.

Ampersand

This one needs to go on my wall. Original art shopping online - arguably one of the 21st century's greatest innovations. 

Thanks Marc Johns, seriously creative.

Your library needs you!

This means war. 

The Save Our Libraries campaign continues across Britain. And it's reaching fever pitch in some communities - check out these images by Phil Bradley, created from World War II posters.

Snap

This is way cooler than a mobile phone camera. 
Seattle design company Engrained created this retro pinhole camera (top)out of a hollowed out copy of Zane Grey's The Man of the Forest.
Selling it on Etsy, the designer says'This unique camera has a magnetic shutter crafted from wood and leather and is finished off with beautiful ebony and pearl knobs. This book is full of character with the fabric cover torn and tattered to perfection.'
There's a select range crafted from original 'upcycled' hardcovers to choose from, including Elizabeth Metzger Howard's Before The Sun Goes Down, and Marlowe Shakespeare from the 1938 Harvard Classics collection. 

And yes, they actually work! 

Each camera is designed to take 35mm film, comes with its own set of instructions and has a magnetic shutter made from leather.

Read

When love bites... 

Read. A simple mantra and one of the best. Love the artwork but am wincing at the pain of destroying a book. Found it on BookshelfPorn.

As lovely as ABC

From the 'I-never-knew-I-needed-this-until-I-saw-it' files: 

How beautiful is this alphabet by Canadian designer Nathalie Nahas! Spotted it on Bloesem. My writing room is crying out for it...

A handy bag

And now, thanks to one of my Literary Salon-ers, something completely light hearted... and some may say sacrilegious: 
How to turn your book into a handbag. 
Yes. Combining two of my great loves - books and design - I can see the virtue in the idea but am not sure I could bring myself to follow through. (And PS. despite the lovely 'dude's' advice, I doubt glue would be robust enough for the demands of carriage - I'd use an industrial sewing machine and make the stitching a feature.)
But were I to muster the courage to slice into a book, for the purpose of resurrecting it in a new and perennial expression of form - something that would slip effortlessly from day to evening, casual to cocktail - the book I would choose is...
Utopia: the Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye
What would you choose?

Oh yes...

Me too!

Saw this on Bookshelf Porn.

Love love...

Found these covetable prints on the UPPERCASE website, a Canadian books/papergoods magazine that makes me drool...

This, by Lisa Congdon, is how I feel with a jumble of different characters in my head all upsidedown and round-about jostling for position...

This is a beautiful bookstack by Katie Green. 

Looks like the pile(s) beside my bed.

And these treasures are vintage matchbox labels (artist unknown). Sigh...they leave the old Redheads for dead.

Art lit

How cool is this! Artist Francisca Prieto has created this literary artwork out of a dictionary of days gone by. Prieto was inspired to mix algebra, alaphabet and anatomy after poring over old copies of Encyclopaedia Britannica. A number of copper plates appear in the artwork along with an inscription dated 3 December 1811. 
As has been recorded on these very blog pages, it is only on the rare occasion that I will accept the act of folding the pages of a book.... For the purpose of art and the preservation of an encyclopaedia culture that has been (sadly) surpassed by the Google age, this is one such occasion!
The piece pictured is titled 'Between Folds/Encyclopaedia' Material: Encyclopaedia Britannica: or, a dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature. Third edition, Volume I - Part I, Edited by Colin Macfarquhar; printed for A. Bell and C. Macfarquhar, 1797.
I want this in my house.

Philosophers on film...

'Philosophy is the strangest of subjects: it aims at rigour and yet is unable to establish any results; it attempts to deal with the most profound questions and yet constantly finds itself preoccupied with the trivialities of language; and it claims to be of great relevance to rational enquiry and the conduct of our life and yet is almost completely ignored. But perhaps what is strangest of all is the passion and intensity with which it is pursued by those who have fallen in its grip.' - Kit Fine, American philosopher.
Photographer Steve Pyke has spent the past 25 years capturing philosophers on film, resulting in his collection of 200 portraits of philosophers which will be published in book form in 2011. 
'Our museums are filled with busts and paintings of long forgotten wealth and beauty instead of the philosophers who have so influenced contemporary politics and society,' says Pyke. 
'My aim in this project has been the modest one of making sure, for this era at least, there is some record of the philosophers.'
In compiling the book Philosophy, Pyke asked his subjects why they had devoted their lives to philosophy.... check out an excerpt, it's an interesting read.

Exquisite...

Everyone online is talking about The Exquisite Book because it is - exquisite.
The brainchild of Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski and Matt LaMothe, it's based on the Surrealist game called the Exquisite Corpse. In book form it's played by a collaboration of 100 artists, designers, illustrators and comic artists. Each artist created one page for the book, seeing only the page that immediately preceded theirs, and using images and sometimes words to progress the story.
Among the artists who participated are Camilla Engman, Takashi Iwasaki, Emiliano Ponzi and Joe McClaren. The foreword is by Dave Eggers.
Another fabulous addition to the creative booklover's bookshelf or a conversation piece for your coffee table. You can pick one up here.