Posts filed under ‘art’
Stereotank’s Little Free Library
Cool waterproof futuristic mini-library in Nolita in NYC from Stereotank. Part of the Little Free Library project. We’ve seen other examples here at Library Shenanigans, but this one is my new favorite. Thanks, BoingBoing!
art from library cards
The Library Card Project at the American Craft Council has yielded some lovely things, but I had to take down the image I linked to them because they don’t allow re-posting of images. They do allow me to link, so I’ve linked from their name.
This isn’t the first time artists have used library materials, of course — Giselle Restrepo has worked with library check-out cards (see image at left), and Alice Walsh uses library cards in her book work, to name just a couple of other practitioners. Thanks, Kathleen Kirk!
things found in books, from dirty to sublime (or both)
Noel Black recently interviewed me for his Big Something radio show on the Colorado Springs NPR station. He got interested in the things found in books at the Colorado College library and asked me to talk about the collection the library keeps.
Some of the things we’ve found over the last decade were left in books deliberately as a sort of art shenanigan, we believe. Most, we are fairly certain, stayed in the books by accident. Library staff, especially student assistants, have been building the collection for about a decade.
I consider the collection itself to be a kind of shenanigan, since it’s unusual for a library to collect and display odds and ends such as these.
library date stamp art
Italian artist Frederico Pietrella uses library date stamps to make representational art. He changes the stamps each day, and may work on a particular piece for a couple of months. His pieces sell for tens of thousands of dollars. If that’s a little rich for your blood, maybe you should check out Giselle Restrepo‘s library check-out card corset and more. Thanks, Steve Lawson!
11 Amazing Library Tattoos
Thank you, Mental Floss, for featuring these gorgeous library tattoos. Do I recognize a librarian friend in one of these pictures? Maybe …. just maybe. Thanks, Steven Kotok, David Weinstock, and BoingBoing! (But most of all Steven Kotok, who sent this to me hot off the press, almost literally.)
If you’re considering a library tattoo yourself, but aren’t sure if you’re ready to commit, perhaps these temporary tattoos would be a good compromise.
garage door bookcase
Niiiiiiiiiice: Robert Crais’s garage door, painted to look like bookshelves. Thanks, BoingBoing!
Something else I like about this shenanigan: the fact that Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing says he doesn’t have a Facebook account so he can’t confirm the Facebook appearance of this image. I am getting a bit peeved at the Facebookiness of everything. If I can possibly help it I try not to link to Facebook stuff, but sometimes people — and institutions! — upload images there and nowhere else. That seems like a mistake, to me. Use your own website! Don’t depend on Facebook for everything! You never know what Facebook is going to do in the future with your stuff or you.
More book sculptures in Edinburgh!
The mysterious book sculptor has struck again! So far, only a few of the fifty flowers she made have been found in Charlotte Square in Edinburgh. Each has a tag bearing a fragment of the Oscar Wilde quote from De Profundis: “…freedom, books, flowers and the moon.” (The full quote is “With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?”)
This shenanigan started in 2011 and I hope it continues for years to come. There’s a book about it now, and an exhibition touring Scotland.
Thanks, Sarah Milteer!
aMAZEme by Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo
Not exactly a library shenanigan, but close enough for me. It’s part of the London 2012 festival, a Borgesian maze over 500 meters square. Thanks, Dina Wood!
books in hollowed-out logs in Berlin
These shelves are connected with Book Forest and BookCrossing. I hope they succeed! Thanks, BoingBoing and Bookshelf.
Mini-libraries all over town
The Little Free Library project aims to get little one-shelf libraries all over the U.S.. The birdhouse-like structures are endearing and the project seems delightful. (The librarian in me, though, fears that these sweet little birdhouse structures will end up becoming dumping grounds for junky books that nobody wants. Hush, librarian in me!) Thanks, BoingBoing!
Library Shenanigans 