Artist Book Sketches: Olive Moore

I took a class in Artist Books this last semester with Julie Leonard at the UI Center for the Book, and one of our assignments was to make a series of 3D "sketches". The sketches involved selecting a simple folded form and combining it with a quote of our choice, so that the structure and text inform one another. I picked a line from the novel Spleen by Olive Moore: "And it all began, thought Ruth idiotically, it all began when we gave up eating grass." I placed the text within the structure so as to play with the word began, and tried to embody the tension between carnality and vegetation by collaging plastic wrap, parchment-colored human anatomy diagrams, shredded paper, and blood-red aquarium rocks.

        

                        

                        

Moore chose her pen name because she said she wanted her books to be like olives: an acquired taste that once acquired, would leave the reader wanting more. After learning this, it was hard not to think of the aquarium rocks as little pimientos. Check back soon for moore artist book sketches!