Altered Art
Altered Art is a contemporary craft that transforms discarded objects, particularly books, into new artistic expressions through techniques such as collage, painting, and creative lettering. This art form encourages originality and creativity, with no strict rules governing its practice. While altered books are the most prevalent medium, artists also embellish a variety of items, including picture frames, lampshades, and even recycled materials like tin cans. The inspiration for altered art draws from various movements, including recycled art and assemblage, which challenge traditional definitions of art by integrating non-traditional materials.
Historically, altered art has roots in practices like the medieval palimpsest, where old manuscripts were repurposed. Today, creators might repurpose books into functional objects or personal keepsakes, highlighting self-expression and playfulness. The community around altered art includes organizations dedicated to fostering creativity and sharing techniques, allowing for a vibrant exchange of ideas among enthusiasts. While many engage in this craft for personal enjoyment, there are opportunities for selling altered pieces, although artists must remain mindful of copyright laws when using existing materials.
Altered Art
History
Altered art is a contemporary craft that begins with a discarded book or other object, and incorporates collage, creative lettering, painting, rubber stamping, or other techniques to produce a new object, or to give an old object new meaning. Altered books are the most popular form for personal self-expression, but artists have embellished picture frames, bottles, lampshades, dolls, old tin cans, and anything else that catches their attention. There are no rules and few guidelines other than originality and creativity.
The inspiration for altered art comes from several different arts and crafts movements, including recycled art, collage, assemblage, découpage, computer art, and scrapbooking.
Collage, a derivative of the French term "coller," which means "to glue" or "to paste," evolved early in the twentieth century, beginning with Pablo Picasso'sStill Life with Chair Caning (1912). The artwork, which includes a piece of oil cloth printed with a realistic chair cane pattern and is framed with rope, represents the first time that non-traditional art materials were incorporated into a painting. The same year, Picasso produced Guitar, Sheet Music and Glass, which incorporated pieces of sheet music and a newspaper clipping into an oil painting.
The term "assemblage" was coined in the 1950s by Jean Dubuffet, a French artist known for his primitive, or "outsider," artwork that challenged traditional definitions of art. Dubuffet added sand or coal ashes to paint and manipulated the mixture to form unusual textures. He included banana peels, leaves, and papier-mâché items in paintings. His 1941 work, Message: The Key is Under the Window-Shutter, which features text written on top of newspaper, can be considered an early application of creative lettering.
Robert Rauschenberg is another artist known for assemblage. One of his most famous paintings, Canyon, incorporates photographs, pieces of metal and cardboard, a stuffed eagle, and a pillow that dangles from the canvas. Rauschenberg's work in the 1950s marks the beginning of the association of assemblage with sculpture.
Altered books have literary roots as well. In the early Middle Ages, with a relative scarcity of vellum and other materials for bookbinding, scribes sometimes scraped the ink from other manuscripts and reused the pages. The technique became known as "palimpsest." The best-known case is the Archimedes Palimpsest. Now a prayer book that was written in 1229, much of the parchment had been obtained from the only known copies of Archimedes' works The Method and Stomachion. Some of the original text can still be seen in the prayer book, and archivists are using sophisticated technologies in the hope of restoring the entire text.
Contemporary altered art involves a great deal of manipulation. Enthusiasts may transform an old book into a purse or a jewelry case. A greeting card may end up embellishing a lampshade, or a lampshade may be given a new life as a hat. Altered artists would be the first to claim that their craft is all about self-expression and having fun.
Examples of surfaces:
Books
- Lampshades
- Tin cans
Bottles
Boxes
- Curtains
Examples of embellishments:
Charms
- Photographs
- Polymer clay
Ribbon
Fabric
- Magazine cut-outs
- Old greeting cards and other ephemera
- Ticket stubs
Buttons
- Sewing and embroidery stitches
Additional supplies may include any or all of the following:
- Various types and colors of paper
- Paper cutter
- Adhesives (white craft glue, hot glue gun, glue stick, epoxy)
Stapler
- Other fasteners
- Cutting mat
- Craft knives
- Scissors
- Metal ruler, t-square, and other rulers
- Paints (acrylic or watercolor) and brushes
- Gesso (primer)
- Gloss or matte medium
- Colored pencils, pens, crayons, pastels, and/or markers
- Decorative paper punches
- Crimping tool
- Other texture tools
- Rubber-stamping supplies
- Creative lettering supplies
- Computer and printer
- Preservative spray
- Vise or heavy weights
- Color wheel
Techniques
For complete techniques and for additional inspiration, consult a published guide on altered art. These are the general steps for altering a book:
- Select an old book. This can either be related to a theme (many books will spark the creative process) or can simply provide an adequate work surface. Avoid books that smell musty or have brittle or yellowed pages. The book should be in good, solid condition and thick enough to be altered.
- Select text and illustrations to be included in the design and mark those pages.
- Make a general outline of the number of pages to be embellished, along with content ideas.
- Taking into consideration the thickness and weight of embellishments, as well as other design elements, use a craft knife to cut out extraneous pages. Pages should be removed in equal increments throughout the book. Allow ample room to complete each design so that the book will be able to close, if desired.
- If the design includes a cut window or door, allow a minimum of a few pages. Some windows may be cut through the entire book, if desired.
- For each page that will be embellished, create a stronger work surface by gluing adjacent pages together. For best results, spread craft glue on an entire page, place wax paper between the glued sections, and clamp between two wooden boards with a vise until dry.
- Paint surfaces or cover with other background material as desired. Some surfaces may need to be primed with gesso first.
- Embellish one page at a time, in layers, using proper adhesives or other fasteners for each item. Use a hair dryer to speed up drying times.
- Finish the cover and spine and embellish as desired.
- Spray preservative on the embellished pages if needed.
Trends
Altered art is a craft that can be considered a trend in itself. Altered books have garnered the most attention, and crafting them around a theme and/or creating memory books for family and friends are popular. Originality is the most important element. Some altered book artists carve, cut, or otherwise shape books into sculptures that rise off the pages. For example, book sculptor Nicholas Galanin's What Have We Become? series comprises hand-carved three-dimensional portraits. Book sculptors may also incorporate other mixed-media techniques into their work.
Altered Art for Fun vs. Profit
One can look at sales of collages, assemblage, découpage, computer art, and other related artwork and guess that altered art will find a similar market. As with scrapbooking, opportunities exist for custom work. Crafters should beware of copyright laws, and obtain permission to use copyrighted materials before attempting to sell their altered artwork.
Learning More
Organizations
International Society of Altered Book Artists
Collage Art Association <https://www.collageart.org/>
The Center for Book Arts <https://centerforbookarts.org/>
Altered Art News <http://www.altered-art.net/>
Books
Arendt, Madeline. Altered Art for the First Time. New York: Sterling, 2005.
Banar Designs. A Beginner's Guide to Altered Art. Little Rock, AR: Leisure Arts, 2006.
Michel, Karen. Complete Guide to Altered Imagery: Mixed-Media Techniques for Collage, Altered Books, Artist Journals, and More. Gloucester, MA: Quarry Books, 2005.
Taylor, Terry. Altered Art: Techniques for Creating Altered Books, Boxes, Cards & More. Asheville, NC: Lark, 2004.