Day 11


Today's post contains several images...I couldn't pick just one. I had the privilege of being invited to spend time with a remarkable group of women artists who had spent a year working on 'altered art books'. This session was their last formal gathering before all their works went to an exhibition at the Palm Springs Art Museum last winter. These particular photos don't do justice the kind of energy that was present in the home of one of the artists for their last meeting. 

The project involved 12 women altogether who created 12 distinct books from handmade papers and original art. They gathered roughly once a month for a year. Each woman made a book with her individual theme. Then, each book was rotated among the 12 women who then added a page or so of her own unique expression. One 'book' used old slim cigar cases that were glue together. Each tin was a 'page'. Another was made completely from handmade papers, all from scratch. Others were outdated hardback books recovered and revived into an expressive art book. The collective result was WOW. Talk about tickling your senses - more like an explosion of textures and colors and imagery and sentiments........thought-provoking, sensitive, rich, poignant... These books screamed to be touched, pages turned and stroked, words and phrases pondered over.  Once the women relaxed with me poking my camera in their faces, I managed to capture the essence of that year in one afternoon. Friendship, congeniality, insight, sisterhood, respect, sharing, humor, tolerance, wittiness, love, wisdom, giving and receiving ......it was all there.
What an honor it was to be enveloped in all that for an afternoon.......kindred spirits ~ 
still searching and expressing what life is all about.


 (Image copyright Diana Shay Diehl. "Altered Art Books" Project)



 (Image copyright Diana Shay Diehl. "Altered Art Books" Project")


 (Image copyright by Diana Shay Diehl. "Altered Art Books" Project)


(Image copyright by Diana Shay Diehl. "Altered Art Books" Project")



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