Mary's books: the forest for the trees
My current primary source of material for the book sculpture I began making in early 2013 (also see Booktools, Toys and Weapons) is the library left behind by my grandmother Mary Low. A citizen of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire and an Anglophile, she read many English classics, translated indifferently into German and printed in 'blackletter,' a Gothic typeface now illegible to virtually all readers. I collage illustrations from these books as well as parts of pages, dust covers, and other miscellaneous printed material onto the painted surfaces of many pieces. It is a labor of love, in many different ways.
