Altered Books

The relatively new art form – The Altered Book – totally intrigues me. It arises directly from my love of books and story, and my despair in seeing so many books discarded. I am driven to create ways to allow a visual image to rise from the damaged pages.

Altered Books inspired by classics

Featured

“Rosemary for Remembrance.” (Ophelia in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”)

Size:
Price: SOLD

“Huck Joins the Gang.” (Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer”)

:Size: 11”w x 8”d x 5”h
Price $200

The L M Montgomery Rose Bowl.

“I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday sweet and fragrant, between its leaves.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

Size:
Price: $300

L M Montgomery Rose Bowl

Side View

Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)

Size: 12”w X 8 ½ ”d x 9”h
Price: $300

“What light in yonder window shines?” (Romeo in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet)

Size: 11”w x 7 ½ d x 7”h
Price: $150

“Please Sir, can I have some more?” (Dicken’s Oliver Twist)

Size:
Price: SOLD

“Let us be elegant or die.” (Jo in Alcott’s “Little Women”)

Size: 11”w x 11”d x 10 ½ h
Price: $250

Comes with a LED candle that tucks inside and looks like flickering firelight

Altered Books Inspired by Children's books

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“As You Wish.” (William Goldman's The Princess Bride)

Size: 12”w x 9”d x 10 ½ “h
Price: $250
Is this reader opening or closing the book “The Princess Bride”? As Wesley said “As you wish.”

“Charlottes Web.” (E.B. White)

"Where's Papa's going with that axe?

Size:
Price: SOLD

Ballet Shoes. (Noel Streatfield)

"Dancing is when I feel alive," said Posy.

Size: 9”w x 6”d x 7”h
Price: SOLD

“Well Done Secret Seven.” (Enid Blyton)

Size: 9”w x 6”d x 8”h
Price: $200

Inside cover is my ink & wash sketch of the Cornish village setting of this story.

Jack and the Beanstalk (English Folk Tale)

Size: 15”w x 101/2”d x 9”h
Price: 250

"Fee fi fo fum. I smell the blood of an English Man."

Detail: Jack and the Beanstalk

Size: 15”w x 101/2”d x 9”h
Price: 250

‘“Beyond the Wild Wood comes the wild world," said the Rat.’ (Kenneth Grahame Wind in the Willows)

Size:
Price: SOLD

“The Swing” (Poem by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Size:
Price: $300
Quote from Poem

“How would you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh I do think it the pleasantest thing,
ever a child can do."

Three Billy Goats Gruff” (European Folk Tale)

"Trip trap trip trap over the rickerty rackerty wooden bridge."

Size:

Price: $300

This piece was inspired by a small 3"x3" pop-up book. I used two elements from the damaged pop-up pages to recreate the central theme of the story on this larger canvas. The fun was trying to copy and blend with the style of the original art - very different from my usual style of painting.

Tell Me a Story

Book trails series
Size: 11”w x 10”d x 10”h
Price: COMMISSIONED

"Shiver Me Timbers!"

Book trails series -
Size: Size: 11”w x 10”d x 10”h
Price: $300

Characters in search of an Author

Book trails series
Size: Size: 11”w x 10”d x 10”h
Price: SOLD

Exhibition Piece - Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine

Size: 16”w x 15”h x 121/2”d
Price: Not For Sale

Hana’s suitcase was my Book Art entry for “Displaced” – an International Book Art competition held by the Weiner Holocaust Library in London England. April 2014.

It was chosen as one of 50 pieces in a presentation by the library, and shown in a slide show to accompany the winner’s exhibit.

Detail: Hanna's Suitcase

The suitcase is all that remains from the short life of Hana Brody, a child sent to Auschwitz in 1944, the year I was born.

Hana was crammed into a cattle boxcar with many other children for 4 days and nights. They were allowed one small suitcase each. They had no food, water or toilet facilities. Upon arrival at Auschwitz the children were ordered to leave their suitcases on the platforms and were marched straight to the gas chamber.
The folded book pages replicate the Auschwitz entrance. The children’s pleading hands are seen thrusting out of the boxcar.

Altered Books Inspired by Non fiction books and Field Guides

Featured

Butterflight (Field guide to butterflies)

Size: 9 ½ “ d x 9”w x x14” h
Price: $250
The black and white illustrations of butterflies needed to escape and find their colours. Then the book itself began to fly.

Comes with small angled plinth.

Canada's First Spring Flower (Flower field guide)

So many lovely wild flowers, but the cheerful Dandelion is always first!

Size: 8”w x 10”d x 6”h
Price: $200

Comes with small angled plinth.

Peterson’s Guide to the Birds

Size: 6”x4”x 1”
Price: SOLD

Who will come Waltzing Matilda with me?

A Drivers guide to Australia
Size: 8 ½ “w x 11 ½ “ x 1”
Price: $200

Inserted panels include my mixed media abstract of the Snowy Mountains

Rapturous Raptor

Webster’s Dictionary N-Z
Size: 9 ½” x 6 ½ “ X 1”
Price: $200
An inserted mixed media panel shows a bald eagle. Below is a panel containing the delightful collection of words found adjacent to the word ‘Raptor' in this 1950's dictionary..

The Source of Almost Everything

Encyclopedia Series: The 12 volume set known as The Source, was sold across Canada in the 1927 by travelling salemen.
Size:
Price: SOLD

Building Foundations

Encyclopedia Series – The 12 volume set entitled The Source, was sold across Canada in 1927.
Size:
Price: $250
A fun depiction of young boy delving through an encyclopedia for information