Month: September 2009

I’ve had lots of friends raise great wads of money for their technology ideas from venture capital firms — but raising a few thousand dollars to bank roll an artist’s book can be impossible. The web has changed that a bit — there’s a website called Kickstarter that is “a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers…” It aims to match artists with small ($5-$50) donors. The donors get something for their donation — maybe a copy of the book or CD produced, an invitation to a party…
Sam Winston’s project is to turn his artist’s book into a trade edition. If you go here, there’s a video about this book (pictured below, and he says about the book “Initially Dictionary Story started as a short narrative in which certain words from the dictionary became living characters that met each other…”). On his blog he has more pictures of the book and the poster he made from it. You can see other projects looking for funding here.

While I’ve written about Brian Dettmer’s altered books in the past, I’ve only seen pictures of his work. That is until today, when I paid a visit to the Toomey Tourell gallery in San Francisco. There’s nearly 2 dozen pieces on display, all picture books (mostly encyclopedias) that have been carved up and layered, producing an almost kaleidoscopic effect. And they aren’t just single books, several are like the one to the left — conjoined to make a much more interesting sculpture. The exhibit runs through the end of September.