Thomas Allen, from SW Michigan, creates moody photographs of his book sculptures, fashioned from vintage pulp paperbacks.The results are bold and stunning.

 

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I spent hours reading his fascinating blog.

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The deteriorating spine of this book has the appearance of a rough-barked tree trunk:

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This is one of my favorites:

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And this, great shadow:

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I love the interplay of his 'assemblage' sculptures, where multiple books interact:

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He has been known to lead workshops, as seen here at

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If you're intrigued check out his book,

Uncovered, Photographs by Thomas Allen:

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Another wonderful book sculptor is Su Blackwell, from SE London. She creates fantastical vignettes out of book pages, on the surface of open books. Each sculpture is made using the pages of a single book:

 

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Click on this blustery scene to see the blowing leaves:

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She has been commissioned to do large-scale replicas of her sculptures for exhibition, as seen in this venue in Hong Kong:

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"It is the delicacy, the slight feeling of claustrophobia, as if these characters, the landscape have been trapped inside the book all this time and are now suddenly released. A number of the compositions have an urgency about them, the choices made for the cut-out people from the illustrations seem to lean towards people on their way somewhere, about to discover something, or perhaps escaping from something. And the landscapes speak of a bleak mystery, a rising, an awareness of the air." — Su Blackwell

 

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You can find some of her works in Playing With Books, The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimaging the Book:

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And Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut:

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9 responses to “Pulp Comes to Life”

  1. maja Avatar

    on a related note, did you catch this documentary? fascinating! http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/between-the-folds/

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  2. Sylvie Avatar

    Oooo, merci Maja. I’m looking forward to seeing that.

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  3. Scott Waterman Avatar

    What a nice post and reminder of what some people do with books other than read them…even me. We’re in sync (again) as my latest blog post includes collages made in a book!
    Btw Sylvie my dream trip of meeting up would be a leisurely drive up the coast with an over night stop at Deetjen’s.

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  4. Di Overton Avatar

    I love the work of Thomas Allen and have great respect for anyone who can do these sort of things with paper, it’s beyond me.

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  5. Sylvie Avatar

    Dear Scott, I should take that dream trip myself. You are welcome here anytime sweetie.
    Dear Di, So nice to hear from you 🙂

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  6. Dar Avatar

    What a fantastic post – I’m so very inspired by both Tomas Allen’s clever work & Su Blackwell’s beautiful little worlds. Now I need to go out & find those two published books… merci!

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  7. Sylvie Avatar

    Dear Dar,
    I went out to a rummage sale last weekend and searched for vintage paperbacks to cut up. I found two or three that may work…
    I’ll post them here if so.
    Merci to you!

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  8. molly Avatar

    holy sheet! thank you! i long for stuff like this… ahhhh, paper…

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  9. Sylvie Avatar

    You’re no slouch yourself, Molly.

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