I have a couple old photo albums that were falling apart. One had some great hardware on it so I didn't want to just throw it away. The covers and spine were in bad shape.
I'm in the process of trying to eliminate some of the clutter in my studio -- old books and photo albums take up valuable shelf space. After checking their value I decided it was time to deconstruct. The material in the books is wonderful and good ephemera for collage.
One of the pieces set aside for deconstruction was the photo album. You may know the type -- about 5 x 4 inches with 1/8th inch thick pages, one photo on each side of the page and gold on the edge. I first decided to remove some of the hardware, there is an inscription on the inside of the two brass clasps....
Fannie was my maternal great-grandfather's half sister. I'll have to look back at the family tree to see which family, she was older than my great-grandfather, his mother's child by her first marriage. Back to the deconstruction. It was a faux leather cover and much was torn and worn but not in a way that made it usable, at least on that side, so I began to remove it. That's when I discovered how wonderful the gold page edges were.... as long as they stayed together.
WOW! I knew that part had to stay together so I removed photos and began gluing the pages together. I've finished gluing it together since this photo was taken, it is now the substrate for a college. I've started it using some of the pile I had from other books I had recently deconstructed.
This was the start. The more I looked at it the more I didn't like the coat of arms... here is where it stands currently....
I'm going to have to look at this for awhile before I decide if this part is done. I still need to come up with something for the top...
or not...
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