Sculpting with Books

Some artists and crafters are using their papercrafting skills to transform books into amazing sculptures. They forever alter a book with rulers and cutting tools.

They choose a book based on its age, size, or contents, and explore the parts that they want highlighted. Page by page and layer by layer, they use cutting to edit what they want us to see – text, images, illustrations, and shapes.

Layers of precise cuts can transform a discarded book into a miniature world of dreams, nightmares, folk tales, fairy tales, humor, surrealism, monster stories, irony, and moody scenes.

Below are a few inspiring pieces from amazing artists who take their inspiration to an entirely new level of paper-crafting. They use both subtractive and additive processes.

For more on altering books, see Su Blackwell and Brian Dettmer.