Book 27      PAPER PALIMPSEST Penn, C. (2009) (Fig 25). PAPER PALIMPSEST.   Unique artist’s book.   34 pages.  34 different kinds of paper, sewing, collage, diagrams, photos, text.  33cm x 38cm x 8cm.   Book 27.  Collection: Cheryl Penn.

Paper Palimpsest was a book that came about as the second stage of the altered book Now there are Only three. As a large part of the dissertation had to do with altered books and the notion that they are palimpsests, I worked with the idea of layering paper.  This book is an example of the first stage of an idea, the move from  head space to  hand space.  The question was, what if I take different types of paper and layer them?  What happens visually, what happens collectively?

Can thirty-four different types of paper be integrated successfully?   The result is the equivalent of a Dagwood sandwich paper book.  Making these thoughts material as the book progressed  led to another altered book, a fragment dictionary.  The question being, instead of paper, what happens when I start burying and layering (palimpsest-ing) objects under different type of paper?  (See Book 45).

-