snip tuck

old books are finding a whole new audience as visual artists open up their leaves, folding and slicing the paper into wondrous shapes.
the meaning of these books is changed - it's a whole new type of editing
this quite astonishing feathery scalpel work by scottish artist georgia russell
works by "book-sculptor" nicholas jones, who both folds (the land i love) and carves.
poet joe de iacovo writes of jones' practice in an essay called, the drag of the blade,
the covers, the pages, the spine- the memory's image of a book temporarily hijacking each sculpture... crafted by unhurried but time-hungry scalpel-work freeing the book's rectangular confines. exposing its innards,
integrating the layers constituting each mass. art colluding with identity reframing via lines of smooth, collective cuts.
jazz musician danny fisher has also responded to jones' work - you can listen to it on the craftculture site - everyone's a critic!
there is paper cutting everywhere.
this paper tree by su blackwell
and her fairy tale castle which would have made me wriggle in ecstasy as a child.
it reminds me that i grew up with polish cut-out folk art - wycinanki.
intricate, sometimes multi-layered designs. abstract, illustrative, both.
my mum would occasionally get to work with scissors and create something extraordinary. but she was only ever a dilettante. in grade 5 or 6, my sister took a different approach to the folk tradition, creating folk scenes, harvesting crops or village scenes, crafting the figures from pages of my mum's magazines. she did some incredible work.
actually, i am finding a lot of things my sister would like. luckily she reads these pages. it's a good way of keeping in touch. in fact i think she should start a blog so i know what's going on in her creative mind!
this one's for you k, between the folds, a documentary on the science and art of origami


addendum: a link my sister sent me the other day, the magic of a toilet roll forest
addendum 2: image from the guardian's 24 hours in pictures, 27 may - Shenyang, northeast China: Pupils of the Pu River Elementary school, practice a shadow puppet performance
Photograph: Mark/EPA