Wednesday Post #5: Topographic Altered Artist Books

Welcome to a new month and a new post. Today I would like to share some pictures of my topographic books. I have been a book artist for about 13 years and recently I started making sculptural books based on topographic maps. I "carve" the books page by page to leave a landscape behind. Sometimes hidden lines and text come out and make the pieces more than what I intented them to be. Several of these books have been juried into art galleries or university shows.

Enjoy!

~Gina

My first foray into topographic book arts was a Library Card Catalog traveling exhibit. I used the positive and negative pieces to make 2 complimentary books.

 Closeup of Mesa Tables.

Here is "Mesa Tables." I only carved the right side of the book of pipe tables into a mesa formation. Hence the name of the piece.

I made this box of treats for my mom. The very tiny carved book is a river flow in reverse. I also made the very tiny box in the lower right.

Here is another boxed art piece with the reverse of a mountain carved into a small German book. I love the way the beach rock mimics the shape of the topographic book.

This is my most recent carved book. It is an old german book that I carved into a table mountain. I think the rock in the center perfectly matches the antique marbled paper revealed once the pages are carved away.