Altered Book Contest

By Miranda Emaus

Oct. 15 – The Kenneth J. Shouldice Library revealed the results of it’s first ever Altered Book Contest. Artists from both the school and community participated by transforming old books in masterpieces by utilizing paint, origami, exacto knifes, paper mache, ect…

The event was inspired from the remodeling of the library; in order to make room for the work area and white board on the main floor of the library, reference books were either moved upstairs or if the school had online access the books were thrown away or recycled. The downside to recycling, however, was that the librarians had to remove the book covers themselves. In order to stop the hypocrisy of librarians destroying books, it was suggested that the old, unneeded books could be pieces of art instead.

The artworks were placed first through third in the following categories: aesthetics, technical, and theme sustainability. There was also a people’s choice award. Coming in first for aesthetics was LSSU student, Lindsey Smith, with her piece “Recycled Home” depicting a bird and it’s nest, and “Janey” and “The Santa” followed as second and third place respectively. “Janey”, however, took first place in the technical category with it’s depiction using engravings from Jane Eyre to describe their own story; the piece comprised of several different individual pieces made from books, and each piece was meant to represent a page in their story. In second place for the technical division was “Read”, and third place was “LSSU Anchor”. In the theme sustainability category, first place went to Jaclyn Schierbeek for “A Hallow Tree”, which displayed a book cover ornately covered with flowers made from book pages and the inside was hollow. The people’s choice award when to the winner of the aesthetics category — “Recycled Home”.

The KJS Library plans on running the competition again next fall.