Night Crossing. Cheryl Penn.

Unique Altered Book. Night Crossing was appropriated  because of its title.  I have taken ‘night crossing’ to mean that moment of transition when the night crosser,   a symbolic person,  transforms and  re-contextualizes  the fragments and images of one’s day into the dream image sequences of  the night. Again, most of the text is obliterated with  the surreal elements remaining; those textual fragments which allude to dreams.  For example;  …there were shadows at the front door, beyond the glass…;  …the world could blink out in a second; … a cluster of hedgehogs erupted all around…  These textual fragments, taken out of context become the equivalent of  a visual fragment  in the altered book.   Inserted into the book are personal dreams, pinned onto the pages.  The choice of pinning rather than sticking was to create the awareness of fragmentation and things not being a part of each other; disparate elements such as the book, the textual fragments, the drawings, the collages, the dreams which are placed together but which remain disjointed. 

Toxic Bachelors

Toxic Bachelors

Unique altered book, mixed media, including collage, altered text, inserted letters, nuts/bolts, glass case. 

So this is an oldie, but a goodie. I heaved it out from under the building rubble - not the bricks and mortar rubble, the STUFF rubble. I’m SO in two minds as to what to do with my collection of books. I must have, altogether, over 1000 artists books, in the main, handmade. I really DO need a reading room. Toxic Bachelors was part of my altered books stage. It was made in 2008 - its hard to believe its ten years old. The book I chose to alter was Toxic Bachelorsby Daniel Steele. The story in the main concentrated on 3 successful, good looking blah blah blah men who gave up their bachelor status for love, of the novel kind. The original text of the novel was painted out and words appropriate to a more sinister meaning were kept. For example, the words remaining on the page dealing with Alegre Patrice, the sadistic, deluded Frenchman who was convicted of 115 murder/rapes are:…an unforgettable night…and for one night at least she had forgotten everything she wanted… Quite spooky and thoroughly unpleasant when one removes words and phrases from their original context. There’s a lesson to be learned there for sure.  Within the pages I collected and inserted letters from women who have had toxic men in their lives. It’s not a pleasant read.