For fun, at the end of a very productive writing retreat, I started playing with altering a book found in the ‘take me away’ bin at the door of the library. The free book, discarded, battered, tired, and in need of a new life, was Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston. It’s full of the kinds of line drawings that remind me of the playful cartoons Dad liked to draw. Though it wasn’t my intention when I picked up the book in one hand, my paints in the other, when my hand began to move… guess who appeared on the page?
At the retreat, we had a moment around the big table when we asked the question, do we let our departed loved ones go or hold them close? Clearly, when it comes to my father, he’s sticking around, reluctant to leave the party.
Even when I started adding my own text to the next page, his influence (in terms of his preferred snacks) infiltrated the alterations.
I don’t know when I’ll have time to continue with this particular book, but when I returned home, I was reminded of a project I started during a weeklong ‘let’s make art’ week Dad and I shared back in 2016-ish when we were prepping to facilitate a creativity-exploration retreat in Europe.
This novel, found in a box at the back of a garage sale, became a series of altered pages:
As an author who knows just how much pain, time, agony, and editing go into writing a book, I must confess at first it felt like a sacrilegious act to deface a page… but once I decided that the book could enjoy a kind of reincarnation and transformation through the process of loving art-making, it got a little easier.
Dad found the project amusing - odd, but intriguing. He egged me on, curious to see what weirdness I’d spill onto the next page…
I still find myself a little conflicted with this book-alteration process, but not enough to stop when the book in question has been well-read and loved and is more likely to find its way to a recycle bin than into the hands of too many more readers.
All of which to say, I do feel him hovering around - a haze of memories and impressions and encouragement. I sincerely hope that if he is watching from somewhere out there he is finding himself amused once again by my efforts on this current project.
I am curious… how do you feel about altered books? Desecration? Or resurrection?