An Altered Book:: The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay

End Page :: The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay

Text:

"We'll go in the Chelton," spoke Cora firmly,
and in that boat they went. And now for a time,
we will take leave of the motor girls.

The End

Ingredients:
photograph of my mother and her three sisters, metallic ribbon, cocktail napkin, rice paper, gold acrylic paint, rubber stamp, black ink, velvet/suede paper, gold Krylon pen

Lessons Learned:
1) I think it might take hours to tell you! Let me put it this way, whatever you do, don't use the end papers as an integrated part of the book, because once you do, you'll have real problems if you have to rebind the book in any way.
2) Remember that what you do on one page can have negative consequences for the other pages. Always go back and make sure every previous page is still "working" as you progress through the book.

Reflections:
This is going to be a little long. Are you ready? Let's start with the technical stuff first. Finishing this book has been a real challenge! Things got really messed things up at the end. Here's what happened...

As you know, the book was getting so fat with beads and fibers and brads and things, that it would no longer close all the way. Perhaps I should have just lived with that, but I thought I could "fix" it. Of course, my plan would have worked a lot better if I hadn't decorated the end paper that is glued to the front inside book cover. Then I could have removed the cover easily, reinforced the spine, and replaced the cover. But I'm a beginner afterall, and I didn't know any better.

So what I did was cut the cover of the spine lengthways down the middle. I decorated my last page by doing essentially the same things I did on page 1. I glued quite a few pages together, leaving the bottom page free, and cut a window. On that free bottom page I painted with gold, glued down that holey metallic ribbon and then the picture on top of it. Then I glued the thick section with the window cut out on top of that.

Trouble was, the last page of the book was totally ripping away from the other pages. I used some tyvec from a USPS priority mail envelope to reinforce the gutter. Then I painted over the double page spread with gold acrylic. Next I glued some strong rice paper (mulberry, I think) across the two pages. After that I painted over the rice paper with some more acrylics. I added the napkin flower, the text and the stamp, and was finished with the inside.

Now for the cover. I would say that the book is almost twice as thick as it was when I started- and I pulled pages out! I had a half inch gap along the spine. I reinforced the spine with a strip of cheesecloth. Then I cut a strip of suede paper with decorative scissor. I used my Krylon pen to gilt the edge and I wrapped the suede paper from the front of the book to the back along the spine. Here's a close-up:

I thought it turned out okay. I know that some people do incredibly beautiful jobs decorating their book's cover, but I decided to keep the homely tan cover as the last connection to the original book. I also like the idea of someone feeling surprised when they open the plain cover expecting something old and yellowing inside and instead find all the colors and textures. I guess it reinforces the old adage, "You can't judge a book by its cover."

Then tragedy struck. I opened up page 8 and my beautiful double page spread ripped right down the middle.

Apparently I didn't do something right when I was futzing with the spine/cover combo. Not only was there a gaping crevasse down the center, some of the text at the bottom of the page ripped mid-word! I had no clue how I was going to repair this. I wasn't even sure that I could camouflage this mistake. Gold ribbon maybe? Or wrapped wire? The funny thing is, I wasn't too heartbroken about these sad looking pages because it became another lesson learned. I had a new challenge - how the heck to fix the split. If you want to find out how I overcame this dilemma, click here.

Some Final Thoughts:
I wanted this last page to be a mirror of the title page. I showed my sister the title page when I started two months ago, and she asked me, "Is that us?" She was referring to the picture of the four little girls. You see, I am the eldest of three sisters, so she thought maybe the book would be about the four of us. But that was just a coincidence. I didn't know how many girls were in the story when I bought the book; I only found out later. So I told my sister that the picture was not of "us," but just a picture I found.

Then she asked me, "Is the photo supposed to represent mom and her sisters?" No, I hadn't even thought about that either. When I started working on the book I had no plan, no idea what I was doing or where I was going with it. Sometimes, while I was working on one page, an idea for the next one would pop into my mind, but that was about it as far as planning goes. Still, I think there was some kind of cosmic design going on with the Motor Girls. I have three sisters. My mom has three sisters. The book was about the adventures of Cora and her three friends. Isn't it amazing that I happened to pick this off the shelf for my first altered book?

My aunts Betty, Louise, Novelle, and my mom, Sandie

When I got to the end, I decided that I would use a picture of my mom, (she's the one in blue on the right) and her sisters. They have lived their lives just like I imagine the Motor Girls did- full of courage, wisdom, grace, humor, and strength; each one living a life filled with personal journeys and adventures. And that's what I want my life to be like too. In fact, I think there's a little bit of the Motor Girls in all of us.

Thank you one and all for sharing this incredibly rewarding artistic process with me. Your advice, praise, and enthusiasm are worth more than words can say. Even though my first altered book is done, I hope there will be many more in my future. And I look forward to sharing them with you.

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