My Learner Centre was recently granted a budget for the library and so we were throwing out a lot of old books. I seized on a few of them and thought about how I could recycle them into some kind of art project. As the books I'd acquired were quite chunky, I wanted students to do something with them that would keep that sense of three dimensional physicality. For some reason, my mind wandered back to the 'secret diaries' I used to keep as a child, where I'd cut away a section from the inside of a book and hide stuff inside.
I discussed this idea with my students and found that a few of them had done similar things with old books. They really loved the idea of altering unwanted books and turning them into some sort of sculpture. After carefully cutting out a section of the book with craft knives, the young people grabbed hold of PVA, tempera paint, clay, oil pastels and fabric scraps to produce these amazing pieces of work!
