Wreck This Book

Over the summer, I bought a book called “Wreck This Journal” by Keri Smith. The concept of the book is that “to create is to destroy.” How true!

As a mixed media artist, you sometimes have to take things that are precious and alter them. For me cutting up a beautiful piece of fabric, can be traumatizing. Slopping paint, ink, or glue on a shiny new thing that’s scary. Punching holes, ripping or otherwise altering something old is sacrilegious.  But all of these things are necessary if you’re an artist. You must get over the thought that your destroying something.

As a kid, I remember being taught to respect books. DON’T crack the spine. Every new school year we made great efforts to cover our school books with kraft paper grocery bags. We meticulously folded and taped the edges so that when the book was returned in June, it maintained its immaculate appearance. I find the new artistic style of altered books fascinating, but its difficult for me to imagine that someone has ripped the poor thing to shreds and gobbed it with glue, paint and ephemera. AH!! Isn’t that one of the mortal sins?

In my effort to find myself as an artist, I decided to purchase Keri’s book. What could it hurt?

The book is loaded with pages of directions. Many of the pages are practically blank with instructions on how you should destroy them or the entire book.  I wondered for awhile if I would pack the book away and ignore its heathenistic calling. NOPE! I quickly got busy destroying the pages.

I brought the book with me on a camping trip with my family.  I started the process by passing time on the long car drive to the camp ground. I cracked the spine HARD! and dug in my purse to find objects to trace. No matter how hard you try, you can’t be neat tracing objects in a moving vehicle.  At first the family thought I was nuts, but soon they got into the destruction with me. I brought my great-nephew down to the pond to paint some pages with mud. Had I lost my mind? Painting with pond scum mud, . . . in a book?

The best part (so far) was tying a string to the spine of the book and attaching it to my brother’s ATV. I laughed watching the book bounce behind us as we drove across the bumpy, un-manicured landscape. The trip around the property forced the string to rip through the spine almost severing in two. The string is now securely embedded into the book’s spine and isn’t coming out

I have lots more pages to wreck in this book. But, I must say that Keri’s concept has triggered a little light in my brain.  She has given me permission to do something that otherwise would go against my personality. Through this awakening, I will work through my art. I have been given the permission to “destroy in order to create!” Thanks Keri!