Books in Life or Death

Paper books are just like us - slowly declining.  They mirror our vulnerabilities and our humanity.  It is easy to share moments of deep personal connection with a paper book, because, really, we are the same, equally human in that sacred space for reading.    

Prepare to be transported to a magical place.  I saw these pictures and fell to a new depth of hopeless love with books.  Feast your eyes on the ravishing works of Guy Laramee.  

Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee

Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee

Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee 

Guy Laramee has done two series, Biblios and The Great Wall, both of which are awe-inspiringly beautiful.  Follow the links to explore them.  

BOOKS A SYMBOL OF HUMAN MORTALITY

Speaking to an interviewer from art site, Colossal: Art and Ingenuity, Guy Laramee describes the motive behind these gorgeous series:

So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.

His words deeply inspired me.  They serve to remind us of the beauty of mortality, challenge us with the inevitability of death and decay, and invoke hope that we will have a legacy.  

For me, these art pieces embody the superiority of paper books over e-books.  Paper books are just like us - slowly declining.  They mirror our vulnerabilities and our humanity.  It is easy to share moments of deep personal connection with a paper book, because, really, we are the same, equally human in that sacred space for reading.    

No e-book can be so beautiful, in life or death.