Jocelyn Taylor Reflection

 For my alterations, I utilized multiple “art actions”, such as dying, ripping, cutting, pasting, folding, etc. Pride and Prejudice has been my favorite book for quite some time now, and even though it was devastating to alter it, the process itself was quite interesting. I was able to take a classic and re-create it into something of my own doing which made the novel even more inspiring to me. When first starting out on this project, I didn’t even know where to begin. No action seemed meaningful enough to deface the book. However, the assignment got me thinking about the story itself, and the time period, as well as the individual characters involved, and the idea of letter writing came to me. The art of letter writing has been lost on our generation, with text and e-mails being the primary source of written communication, but in those days, “snail mail” was one’s lifeline to another. As I thought more about letters, I flipped through the pages and started noticing a mix of favorite quotes and parts within the story of mine. That’s when I got the idea to rip out the pages that contained these fond sayings and fold them into envelopes until I had a stack of literary letters. In order to delve further into the project, I used tea and soaked the pages until they were an antique gold, (I believed it fit well with the time period). When I was soaking the pages, I was worried that the ink would drain together, however each letter remained intact as the paper soaked up the herbal water. The paper became a little stiff and crinkly to the touch, but was easily enough swayed to take a different shape. A letter seal was another invention of the times, where people would use candle wax and a special tool to seal the letter. For this, I cut out construction paper and drew on it with red pastels which gave it a more “waxy” look. I also incorporated some paintings I had in an art book of mine which housed the work of Turner, Whistler, and Monet. I cut out some of the illustrations and used them on the front flap of the envelopes for about half of them. The paper on which the art was on was sturdier and heavier than the pages in the novel, giving the letters a more weighted feel. Additionally, I highlighted my favorite parts on the page with red marker which you can make out on the back of each envelope. Luckily, the paper was able to take the ink of the marker and my markings remained complete and did not bleed out onto the page. With all of these alterations, I learned that paper is not as fragile as people think, but can actually go through a lot before it is broken.

            The readings, I found, were also fascinating. Today, paper is trivial compared to other inventions and discoveries. Because it is in bulk everywhere, people lose sight of its significance. A couple of things that I found interesting was the importance of water and how it factored to paper mill locations. Water was vital when it came to turning the beaters and making the pulp.  In order to make one kilo of paper, 2,000 liters of water were needed (Lebvre). Even though an enormous amount of water was necessary, still certain requirements had to be met. The best quality of water was crucial and for this reason it had to be pure and clean. In order to do this, manufacturers had to build their mills upstream instead of downstream to avoid extra waste in the water. Also, the higher the mill was situated usually meant cleaner water. I also thought it was interesting that the next main element in paper making was the supply of rags. In fact, Rag and Bone Men sprouted up specifically for collecting old rags. Another interesting fact came from the Hunter reading when he described the, “stepping stones in the growth of man,” to be, “speaking-drawing-printing” (Hunter). This was fascinating because these actions are regarded as communication that evokes thought and expression and are commonly in association with paper (at least nowadays). Specifically for printing, it was interesting how people who had a message to share found a way to share it with others. For instance other mediums used before paper included, wood, tree leaves, parchment, rice paper, and even stone and brick. Writing ideas down and drawing little illustrations has been a part of human progression since the beginning of time. Paper only offered a simpler, more effective platform in which to do so.

           

Angela Salvo Reflection

The process of altering a book, a textbook to be more precise, ended up being much more fun and satisfying than I could have expected. The book I chose was my public speaking textbook from last year spring semester. The reason that this book means enough to me to alter it is that taking that public speaking course was a huge leap out of my comfort zone and to me it represents a step in the right direction towards a more competent and confident version of myself. The class was an interesting experience for me, and at times I just plain wanted to give up entirely, so the fact that I made it through the class successfully made it a worthwhile experience. Therefore, transforming this book was a good choice for me for this assignment.

To begin, I wasn’t really sure what to do to the book. My initial thoughts were to simply go through it and cut some pages up, paint some pages, maybe soak a few pages, burn a page, and see where the process took me. My housemate gave me the idea to cut the entire book into the shape of a circle, and that intrigued me. So to accomplish that I started by rounding off the two corners that weren’t attached to the binding edge. To achieve this look I used the x-acto knife from our art supply pack. I drew a curved line to give myself a guide of where to cut the pages. As I continued, I found it easy at first but more difficult trying to keep it perfectly lined up as I cut more and more of the book. By the time I finished rounding off the first corner, my arm was starting to hurt, but I was getting the hang of how to best achieve the curved line I was going for. When I began the bottom corner, I took a chunk of pages at a time and put only that chunk of pages down against the cutting surface. This was easier but the end result ended up giving a sloped edge to the pages as the top pages were cut slightly further in then the bottom pages, but I liked the effect so I went with it. Then I began to consider whether or not making the book completely round was realistic. Looking at what I had so far, I realized that cutting a triangle out from the middle would look like a mouth and thus make my book as a whole resemble Pac-Man. Once this process was complete, I needed to decide how to alter the cover and binding edge to look like Pac-man which made me chose painting, and to make it into Ms. Pac-Man instead.

My next step was to paint. Since the cover was shiny I knew that the gouache would not cover it entirely without many, many coats of paint. Therefore, I tore a blank page from the end of the book and used the adhesive from our art supply pack to paste the page onto the cover of the book. Once that dried mostly, I painted the cover yellow using multiple coats, painted red lips, a red bow, and a black curved line as a closed eye, with eyelashes. This was my own interpretation of the classic Ms. Pac-Man representation, as I added eyelashes and painted the lips slightly differently. Once this dried, it formed a curved shape which I hadn’t anticipated but I think adds some aesthetic interest. To make the binding yellow as well, I cut a strip of construction paper and glued it to the edge.

Then I wanted to add something to the inside of the book. At first I simply sprayed some perfume on one of the middle pages, to relate to perfume advertisements in magazines. Next I decided to take out my x-acto knife again and create a hole in the middle to represent Ms. Pac-Man’s stomach. I used the pieces of paper that came out of that hole and crumpled them into little balls. These are intended to represent the circles of “food” that Ms. Pac-Man eats when you play the video game.

Drawing from the reading, “Preliminaries: The Introduction of Paper into Europe,” I found the description of exactly how paper is made to be very interesting. From the raw material being old rags, to the fact that there were “specialized dealers,” to the sorting process, I had no idea exactly how much work went into it. The steeping of the rags, chopping of the rags, and leaving the material in cellars to ferment seems very involved and specific. I did however recognize the use of the term “reams” when referring to stacks of paper, as I work in the Information Center here at Bryant where I handle a lot of paper as I refill the printer each work shift.

The actual definition of paper, found in the reading, “Before Paper,” is, “a substance made in the form of thin sheets or leaves from rags, straw, bark, wood, or other fibrous material, for various uses.” This makes sense to me but based on all the other ways that paper, although some processes do not result in “true paper” has been made makes me consider this definition rather limited. Also from this reading I found it intriguing just how much paper is produced for each individual of the population in the United States (287.5 pounds in 1943). Related to this is that the previously stated “fact” that, “the civilization of a country may be determined by the amount of paper consumed,” although this is not really true anymore due to the large quantities of paper used in the U.S. for, “industrial and utilitarian purposes,” which doesn’t relate at all to the use of paper in printing books and for writing purposes.



Lastly, in the reading, “Common Bond,” I found the list of surfaces that have been used for writing over the course of history to be interesting, as it included, “stone, cured animal skins, woven cloth, flattened metal sheets, peeled tree bark, dried animal bones, seashells, and shards of pottery,” amongst many others. Overall, I found parts of the readings to be eye-opening and greatly enjoyed the process of altering my book, as well as the end result.

Taylor Roucheleau Reflection

Today, individuals take their access to paper for granted. Paper comes in all different shades of color, different shapes, sizes, textures, etc. One would be surprised that the process of making paper was not an easy one. Paper making goes even further back to the 12th century when a new kind of parchment made its first appearance in Italy. Paper and parchment had completely different surface qualities. Paper was fragile. It had a rag base and more of a cotton appearance. (Preliminaries: The Introduction of Paper into Europe) Paper also ripped very easily. However, despite papers fragile surface, paper and paper mills took off in Italy. Next, the cultivation of flax and hemp in the Middle Ages was being used as a substitution of linen for wool in underwear making. The flax and hemp helped significantly to make a rag base in paper. It was less costly. There was still improvements that needed to be made to improve the quality and quantity of paper. Manufacturers improved the adhesive properties of the pulp used in paper but substituting animal glue and gelatin for the vegetable glues used originally. This gave the paper a more “cotton-like” finish.

So how exactly is paper made? After the 12th century, from the 14th century to the 18th century the process of paper significantly kept changing. The most substantial development was the replacement of the mallets by cylinders being used in the paper process. In creating the best quality paper, manufacturers used flimsy, white rags that was separated from any other tough fabrics. Also, to make good quality paper, pure water was the crucial. The pure water was used to turn the beaters and to make the pulp. The search for old rags and fabrics led to more and more paper mills being established. However, the search for rags became difficult. Rag collectors were charging a great deal for the rags, and this led to papermakers going right to the state to grant them with monopolies in the rag collection. In the 18th century, reading and writing also began increasing, and the need for paper did as well. As long as the rag remained the most essential raw material in papermaking, expanding the papermaking industry continued to be difficult. (Preconditions of the Growth of Paper-Making: Natural and Industrial)

Before papermaking became essential there was a long list of writing surfaces that were being used for centuries. The list included cured animal skins, woven cloth, stone, flattened metal sheets, tree bark, dried animal bones, and even sea shells. All over the country, people were using very different types of writing surfaces. For example, in Egypt, individuals were using scrolls that were made from thinly sliced sections of marsh reed. This was used for its lightness as well as its flexibility. This was used for nearly four thousand years because the marsh reed plant or papyrus was known as the “gold standard of recording surfaces”. (Common Bond) Paper arrived at a time when a new surface medium became urgent for people who recorded everything they could about religious, literary, artistic, and business details on whatever writing surface they could get their hands on. To create a book from bamboo, the user would have to slice very narrow strips of the bamboo from the skin and then fasten them together with twine for the book to stay together. It was not an easy process for those individuals, and they felt that paper would suffice a lot better.

Today, the need for commercial paper for everyday needs is overwhelming. Paper is being made mechanically in Japan by industrial giants such as Oji Paper Company and Nippon Paper Industries. There is also a great need for massive supplies of wood pulp. This wood pulp is being imported on container ships overseas. In Japan, the individuals making the paper mechanically is considered to be a time-honored method. This method is greatly being threatened with extinction. A lot of the traditionally made papers from centuries ago are considered to be “cultural property” and it is in need of preservation as well as protection.



Altered Book:

I chose to alter a childhood favorite book, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. This book is a children’s picture book that was published in 1964. The book follows the life of an apple tree, and a little boy. The tree has the ability to communicate with the little boy. As the little boy grows up he enjoys playing with the tree, climbing the tree, swinging from her branches, as well as eating the apples off of the tree. Time passed, and the little boy did not want to play with the tree as much anymore. He was becoming a teenager, and he needed things. The tree was always willing to help. The boy asked for money, and the tree suggested the boy sell her apples. More time passed, and the boy grew older and wanted to start a family, so the tree told the boy to take her branches and build a house. Every time the tree did the boy a favor and helped him out, the tree was happy. More time passed, and the boy who was now a man wanted to sail far away from his life. The tree was there to help again, and the boy cut down the tree trunk, made a boat and sailed away. Time passed and there was nothing but a tree stump, and the man returned again seeking help, but the tree had nothing to give. The man just sat on the stump because all he needed was a quiet place, and again the tree was happy. Not only did I choose this book because it was a childhood favorite of mine, I chose this book because now as I read it to my niece, I still love the story, but I feel that there is not any color to the book and the pages are rather boring, with just words, and black and white pictures that explain the story between the boy and the tree.

1. I chose to add color to every page of the book. I colored in the trees, and the little boy. I found that most little children like my niece like to be interactive, so I added little details to the book on each page, to make the story line more observant.

2. On some of the blank pages, I cut designs into the book to add more of a visual feel to the book.

3. On some of the other blank pages, I thought it would be cool to paint the bottom of an old pair of shoes I had and smudge paint on the book. I felt that to me this helped explain how the boy kept leaving the tree, and coming back.

4. I splatter painted some of the pages, just to make them stand out to the readers eye.

5. Lastly, I made the cover of the book, rather blank and boring.

*The process of altering a book was not an easy one for me though. I felt that changing a childhood book was rather difficult. When I chose to make the cover of the book blank and boring I kept thinking of the saying “Do not judge a book by the cover”. Just because the cover of the book is boring, doesn’t mean what is inside is boring, and dry. I wanted the pages to stand out a little more with color because as a child, and knowing what my niece likes, color is what young children look at.

Danah Ringel Reflection

 I had so much fun altering my book. I chose to re-deign my Financial Management textbook. This was one of my least favorite classes at Bryant and I had no problem destroying this book. The very first thing I did to alter my book was soaking it in water. This made the book very heavy and I actually had to squeeze the book to get rid of the excess water. After soaking my book, I decided I wanted to burn some of the pages too. I learned that if you’re going to burn a book you should probably do that before soaking the book in water. I didn’t think my book was going to take as long to dry as it did. As a result, I ripped out a lot of pages to not only make it dry faster, but also make it lighter. I tried to do as many of the things on the list as possible. Some of the art actions I completed included puncture, rip, cut, fold, tear, tweeze, stamp, burn, soak, spray, and clip.  My process involved looking at the list of words we created in class and seeing how I could alter my book accordingly. For example, I cut a hollow box inside my book in order to represent the “nothing” I learned in Finance. In cutting the pages, I learned it was a lot easier to cut my book when it was wet as opposed to it being dry. However, the pages tended to rip easier when they were wet. I had learned in Creativity in the Arts to experiment using multiple different mediums and to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to art. I had fun letting my imagination run wild completing this book and I loved the end result. It was almost unrecognizable. Ordinarily, I prefer the end result over the process. In completing this assignment, I had more fun during the process. I learned that it can be very therapeutic to destroy a textbook for a course that you hated!   

Paper making originated in China around A.D. 105. Cai Lun had “initiated the idea of making paper from the bark of trees, hemp, old rags, and fishing nets” (Common Bond, p.7). “An accurate definition might describe paper as a composite of water and pulverized cellulose fragments screened through a sieve and dried into a flat film” (Common Bond, p.9). Before the invention of paper, many different types of surfaces were used over the centuries. These included woven cloth, flattened metal sheets, peeled tree bark, stone, cured animal skins, dried animal bones, seashells, and shards of pottery. In Egypt, papyrus was used heavily in the making of recording surfaces. Strips of the marsh reed, measuring nearly 20 feet tall, were sliced, cut, and dried and placed in two layers. These layers were moistened, flattened under pressure, and smoothed into sheets that were then pasted together and rolled up into compact rolls. The Chinese made their paper a little bit differently. Materials such as frayed rope, cloth scraps, hemp, and fishnets were washed, soaked and beaten to a pulp with a wooden mallet. The ingredients were then placed in a vat of pure water and stirred. Next, a scoop of the slurry was poured over a screen of woven cloth that had been suspended between a brace of poles. Excess liquid was drained and the newly formed paper was left to dry. The interlocking fibers from the cellulose found in plants is left behind and this is what creates the paper. Essentially what the Chinese discovered was the process of hydrogen bonding, or the process of molecular cohesion. Over the coming years, paper making has taken on many techniques as well as utilized an array of different ingredients. However, the fundamentals of the process still remain the same till this day: clean water, cellulose fiber, and a screen mold.  

   

I find it interesting that paper is able to shape a culture as well as a way of life. Many different surfaces were used before the paper we know and use today. Hieroglyphics and other characters and symbols were written upon surfaces including walls of caves, wood, metal, stone, leaves, barks, bamboo, cloths, ceramics, papyrus and parchment. Tools such as knives, sticks, and chisels were used to etch symbols into these surfaces. The camel hair brush revolutionized the way symbols and other written characters were transcribed on to surfaces. This allowed for ink to be easily painted onto a surface. The animal hair brush was the instrument of choice when paper arrived. I found it interesting when reading Chinese, the characters are read from top to bottom vertically as opposed to left to right horizontally. Chinese characters were written on narrow strips of bamboo fastened together with pieces of twine. These restrictions resulted in the characters being written and read from top to bottom. Paper has become an essential in everyday lives. “The low cost of paper and flexibility of paper made it ideally suited to the making of fans, umbrellas, lanterns, and kites” (Common Bond, p.12). Paper has also made great strides in personal hygiene with the creation of disposable toilet paper. Paper was even used to make light summer clothes as well as body armor for warriors. At funerals, the bereaved would take representations of horses, camels, servants, armor, and fake money made out of cotton-paper and place it alongside the corpse. Both the corpse and the paper figures would be burned together. Lastly, paper was used in the wrapping of packages as well as building and binding. When you really take the time to think about it, paper is a product taken for granted in our society. It is essential to everyday life and it’s hard to think of a world without it.  

Ana Gabriela Pascual Reflection

Getting to alter my old French book was exciting for multiple reasons. When I first started college I thought it would be impressive and cool to be trilingual but as I actually started in the actual class I soon had to make a decision between passing or failing my first semester at Bryant. I decided that taking a language would require too much time, which at the time I was not convinced I had. Luckily for me, I started my first semester at college with only 4 courses, and strangely enough I get to finish my college career with 4 courses as well. Unluckily for me, I’ve been now stuck with this textbook for four years with no hope of ever selling it. Thus why I thought this opportunity to alter a book was the perfect way to utilize my never used French 105 textbook.

Another reason of why I choose to alter a textbook was because it’s something out of the norm. Who else gets to say that as part of homework they got to alter another class’s textbook? I like being able to break the rules of society in the aspect that I get to use a textbook for another reason that is not reading, reading and reading. While altering my book I learned that it is ok to break out of the socially accepted norms. Having picked a textbook meant that I had many pages to work with without really knowing what I wanted to do to them.

With anything in life, I like to try new things and then decide whether it is something that I will do again or not. So I did just that, I started alerting my book in small ways and then taking on entire pages. This project allowed me to understand that one needs to think outside the book in order to create something new. I never would have thought to sewn in my name on a textbook page, let alone that it would actually work.

Same with when altering my book, the people who created paper had to think outside the box in order to create something new and durable. It’s hard to imagine our

day to day lives now without the use of paper as we use it daily. We use paper at our houses, job, and school, literally everywhere. It’s interesting to see how the invention of a single sheet of paper later on developed into gathering them and creating books.

One thing I learned about paper is that it was originally made out of rags. The process was extensive and precise in order to get good quality paper. One of the most important ingredients, apart from the rags themselves, was the water. Yes, water was easily accessible but in order to produce paper, it was pure water what was needed. This forced communities to think of ways to reach water that was limpid and pure.

Throughout the years individuals tried to think of new ways to make paper, how to make it more accessible, and how to expand the papermaking industry due to the lack of raw materials. Thus why I learned that the papermaking industry was always conditional on the supply of raw materials no matter how high the demand was. When the art of book making made its debut it was clear that the contact between the papermaking industry and the book trade was dependent of each other.

I was also able to learn about the list of items that have been used in the past in order to create paper. I knew about some such like: stones, woven cloths, flattened metal sheets and peeled tree bark. But in return, I had never thought about animal skins, dried animal bones and seashells as writing surfaces.

It was interesting to learn that the first Chinese word used for paper was chih because it has no relation to the English word “paper”. But it now makes sense that paper was named that since the word is derived from the word “papyrus”, which was used around Egypt for a long time as a writing surface. It was also impressive to know that although different ways of making paper were created across the world the

fundamentals of it stayed the same all throughout. The use of clean water, cellulose fiber and screen mold was highly important in the making of paper. It all comes down to this quote from a professor from the Kunming Institute of Botany; Guan Kaiyun said “In theory, any plant can be used for making paper, but the difference is the quality and the quantity of the fibers”. I enjoyed this quoted because it all comes down to the idea that anything is possible if one just thinks outside the box, just like with paper making and altering books.