This is a craft (or rather, an art form) that I will charitably describe as "difficult to get right." The idea behind this craft is that you take an old book, do some stuff to it, and turn it into an artwork. Interesting idea in theory. In practice, the results are… varied.
First of all I should say up front that I do not object to altering books on philosophical grounds. I know that a lot of people get really upset any time you threaten to cut up an old book, because they treasure books as objects in and of themselves. To many people, books have value. I respect that and I honor that opinion, but that's not how I feel.
In practice, the world is awash in unwanted books. In the most literal economic sense, books have virtually no value at all. You can buy them by the armload at any used book store for a few bucks apiece. The bottom has completely fallen out of the used book market. If people want to use old books as craft supplies, I say go for it.
Back to the issue at hand. The main problem with altered books is a problem which is common to a lot of forms of collage art: the impulse to keep adding more things. It's not enough to (e.g.) cut out the cover and paint an eye on the front page so that it looks like a murderer is peeking through. The crafter then has to add glitter and black lace ribbons and a lot of butterflies for some reason and then draw swirls in purple pearlescent paint.
Most altered books end up looking like the work of a scrapbooker confined to a mental institution who was accidentally left unattended in the asylum library with a bucket of craft supplies.
Altered books can be done very well, but this is rare. 99 times out of 100 I quietly think, "I'd rather just have the original book on my walls."
This isn't meant as a discouragement to anyone who wants to work in the medium of altered books. It's a challenge. Focus! This is a situation where less is more.
Stack of unaltered (pre-altered?) old books courtesy Flickr/Wyoming_Jackrabbit
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