My local library were about to discard a few boxes of books, so I decided to salvage them for an art project.

I have been interested in making art from objects and re-purposing or up-cycling found materials and re-designing with the view to making aestheticallly pleasing artworks form materials that would otherwise have gone to the waste bin or sat sadly in an op shop.

Students were inspired by other artists who have developed this idea further and produced amazing works of art with sculpting, folding, constructing, binding, cutting and re-forming books. We started with discusssions and looking on You Tube at other creations from books.

We produced some small-scale trials that included as many ways as possible to manipulate paper and books.

From this experimental stage students had to choose their own theme to base their artwork on. They explored a range of ideas through drawings and collecting visual resources as triggers for original thinking and interesting ways to work. Students were then asked to consider, methods of construction, the number of books required, scale and additional materials.

Students worked independently on their chosen themes and learnt the best methods of assembly, or construction through trial and error.

The finished results vary from a one book piece that houses a teapot and teacup, to a larger scale pice involving slicing up numerous books to create an artwork based on stairways.