Post by theshee on Dec 3, 2011 3:13:12 GMT 10
I thought these were just fantastic and such a lovely thing to do 
It started suddenly. Without warning.
Last spring, Julie Johnstone, a librarian at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, was wandering through a reading room when she saw, sitting alone on a random table, a little tree.
It was made of twisted paper and was mounted on a book.
Gorgeously crafted, it came with a gold-leafed eggshell broken in two, each half filled with little strips of paper with phrases on them. When reassembled properly, the strips became a poem about birds, "A Trace of Wings" by Edwin Morgan.
"This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas..." said a note, addressed to the Library by its twitter name "@byleaveswelive". There was no artist signature, no one to thank. The staff, totally nonplussed, asked on their blog if anybody knew who made it. They described the gift as a "poetree" and waited. Nobody claimed authorship.
Then, it happened again
This time, a coffin, topped by a large gramophone showed up suddenly at The National Library of Scotland. The scene was carved from a book, a mystery novel by Ian Rankin, one of Britain's bestselling crime writers. It seemed like a visual pun, because the book's title was Exit Music.
Once again, a note said, "A gift in support of libraries, books, words, ideas...(& against their exit)."
Next came a movie theater, one of Edinburgh's local art film houses. It got, out of nowhere, a book carved so that a bunch of warriors seemed to be leaping (or in some cases galloping) off a movie screen straight into a startled audience. One of the audience members, if you looked closely, was wearing a tiny photo of the face of mystery writer Ian Rankin. The mystery deepened.
Was this Rankin's doing? His Scottish detective character, named Rebus, has been adapted for television. Perhaps the TV people were trying to gin up some publicity? A new form of viral marketing, maybe? No, said Rankin. He told the Edinburgh papers he had no idea who made these little books and he had nothing to do with it.
Next (and by now we've moved from spring into summer) somebody found a little dragon peeking out of an egg in a windowsill at The Scottish Storytelling Centre. This dragon was carved, once again, from an Ian Rankin mystery and came with the same anonymous tag:
Then, the pace quickened. On a single day in August, two new sculptures showed up at the Edinburgh International Book festival, one at the Bookshop, the other at something called the UNESCO Edinburgh City of Literature. Whoever brought them in, got out unnoticed.
By this fall, these mysterious sculptures had become a hot story. Reporters checked the newest teacup and cupcake, then the little fellow hiding in a forest for some sign of authorship, and once again found a connection to mystery writer Ian Rankin. The hiding man was nestled in a book Rankin had publicly admired.
Mr. Rankin came to the festival, checked out the new sculpture. Here he is, trying to look innocent. The thing is: he probably is innocent. Because within a week or two, another sculpture, this one a large magnifying glass, something Sherlock Holmes might have used but in paper form, appeared at the Central Lending Library. It was balanced precariously on a book.
This sculpture had no known connection to Mr. Rankin, but it did quote from poet Edward Morgan — whose poem inspired the first sculpture. Hmmm. First Morgan, then Rankin, then Morgan again — who is the real perpetrator, asked the BBC, Scotland TV, The Guardian. And what is he? She? They? trying to tell us? Everyone wanted to know.
Just as the news cycle was about to hit boil, The Edinburgh Evening News announced it had cracked the case. It turns out, they said, their own former music librarian, a Mr. Garry Gale, had figured it out. Mr. Gale said when he saw the sculptures he realized they looked exactly like a paper sculpture he had bought a year or so earlier from a certain artist that he didn't name, but the styles were so unerringly similar it had to be the same artist who was dropping these little gifts on major cultural centers in Edinburgh.
Then He? She? It? Whoever it is, the Phantom Sculptor is suddenly back!
In mid-November, someone at the Scottish Poetry Library spotted a fresh, handwritten entry in the guest book, which said "I've left a little something for you," at the shelf marked "Women's Anthologies X." When they went to check, there were three objects on the shelf. The first, a cap that could fit on a small head, was fashioned to look like a wren, head pointing forward, the back a puffed up haze of feathers. The feathers, as documented by photographer Chris Scott, are exquisitely fashioned.
And, finally, alongside the cap and gloves, whoever it is that makes these things, left an explanatory note, which revealed first, that she is a woman, ("Some even thought it was a 'he'!...As if!"), that she is not, as many thought, an artist who specializes in sculpting books ("this was the first time"), that these sculptures were thank you gestures "in support of special places," and that she had no intention of revealing her identity and anyway, newspaper readers across Edinburgh were happy "not to know...which was the point, really."
She also mentioned that this was the "last" sculpture she would do, the last of 10, and therefore it seemed only right to put it in the Poetry Library, where she had started.
Wait a second! Did she say 10? As of mid-November there had been 7 surprise sculptures found in Edinburgh. Counting the new one, that's 8. What happened to the other two? Had they been ignored, or worse, thrown away?
Everybody told everybody else to take a look...and, very quickly, (whew)...up they popped. Turns out the phantom had made a new deposit at the National Museum of Scotland. It was hard to notice at first, because viewed from the binding, this book had a suspicious little tail peeking through...
But when you turned it around, there, peeking out of pages was an adorably ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex.
And over at the Writer's Museum — it's not clear how long it had been there — was a sculpture propped atop the donations box in the Robert Louis Stevenson room. It was a street scene, with birds, people, cobblestones, all under a dangling moon hanging in the sky.
Ten gifts. All accounted for. And that, it seems, is the end of our story. Somebody who chose and whose neighbors chose to never identify spent the spring, summer and fall expressing her thanks for the continuing existence of libraries, museums and books in Scotland, "a tiny gesture," she called it.
Tiny, yes, but also, in its way, very grand.
More pics here - community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Mysterious-paper-sculptures/blog/4991767/126249.html
It started suddenly. Without warning.
Last spring, Julie Johnstone, a librarian at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, was wandering through a reading room when she saw, sitting alone on a random table, a little tree.
It was made of twisted paper and was mounted on a book.
Gorgeously crafted, it came with a gold-leafed eggshell broken in two, each half filled with little strips of paper with phrases on them. When reassembled properly, the strips became a poem about birds, "A Trace of Wings" by Edwin Morgan.
"This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas..." said a note, addressed to the Library by its twitter name "@byleaveswelive". There was no artist signature, no one to thank. The staff, totally nonplussed, asked on their blog if anybody knew who made it. They described the gift as a "poetree" and waited. Nobody claimed authorship.
Then, it happened again
This time, a coffin, topped by a large gramophone showed up suddenly at The National Library of Scotland. The scene was carved from a book, a mystery novel by Ian Rankin, one of Britain's bestselling crime writers. It seemed like a visual pun, because the book's title was Exit Music.
Once again, a note said, "A gift in support of libraries, books, words, ideas...(& against their exit)."
Next came a movie theater, one of Edinburgh's local art film houses. It got, out of nowhere, a book carved so that a bunch of warriors seemed to be leaping (or in some cases galloping) off a movie screen straight into a startled audience. One of the audience members, if you looked closely, was wearing a tiny photo of the face of mystery writer Ian Rankin. The mystery deepened.
Was this Rankin's doing? His Scottish detective character, named Rebus, has been adapted for television. Perhaps the TV people were trying to gin up some publicity? A new form of viral marketing, maybe? No, said Rankin. He told the Edinburgh papers he had no idea who made these little books and he had nothing to do with it.
Next (and by now we've moved from spring into summer) somebody found a little dragon peeking out of an egg in a windowsill at The Scottish Storytelling Centre. This dragon was carved, once again, from an Ian Rankin mystery and came with the same anonymous tag:
Then, the pace quickened. On a single day in August, two new sculptures showed up at the Edinburgh International Book festival, one at the Bookshop, the other at something called the UNESCO Edinburgh City of Literature. Whoever brought them in, got out unnoticed.
By this fall, these mysterious sculptures had become a hot story. Reporters checked the newest teacup and cupcake, then the little fellow hiding in a forest for some sign of authorship, and once again found a connection to mystery writer Ian Rankin. The hiding man was nestled in a book Rankin had publicly admired.
Mr. Rankin came to the festival, checked out the new sculpture. Here he is, trying to look innocent. The thing is: he probably is innocent. Because within a week or two, another sculpture, this one a large magnifying glass, something Sherlock Holmes might have used but in paper form, appeared at the Central Lending Library. It was balanced precariously on a book.
This sculpture had no known connection to Mr. Rankin, but it did quote from poet Edward Morgan — whose poem inspired the first sculpture. Hmmm. First Morgan, then Rankin, then Morgan again — who is the real perpetrator, asked the BBC, Scotland TV, The Guardian. And what is he? She? They? trying to tell us? Everyone wanted to know.
Just as the news cycle was about to hit boil, The Edinburgh Evening News announced it had cracked the case. It turns out, they said, their own former music librarian, a Mr. Garry Gale, had figured it out. Mr. Gale said when he saw the sculptures he realized they looked exactly like a paper sculpture he had bought a year or so earlier from a certain artist that he didn't name, but the styles were so unerringly similar it had to be the same artist who was dropping these little gifts on major cultural centers in Edinburgh.
Then He? She? It? Whoever it is, the Phantom Sculptor is suddenly back!
In mid-November, someone at the Scottish Poetry Library spotted a fresh, handwritten entry in the guest book, which said "I've left a little something for you," at the shelf marked "Women's Anthologies X." When they went to check, there were three objects on the shelf. The first, a cap that could fit on a small head, was fashioned to look like a wren, head pointing forward, the back a puffed up haze of feathers. The feathers, as documented by photographer Chris Scott, are exquisitely fashioned.
And, finally, alongside the cap and gloves, whoever it is that makes these things, left an explanatory note, which revealed first, that she is a woman, ("Some even thought it was a 'he'!...As if!"), that she is not, as many thought, an artist who specializes in sculpting books ("this was the first time"), that these sculptures were thank you gestures "in support of special places," and that she had no intention of revealing her identity and anyway, newspaper readers across Edinburgh were happy "not to know...which was the point, really."
She also mentioned that this was the "last" sculpture she would do, the last of 10, and therefore it seemed only right to put it in the Poetry Library, where she had started.
Wait a second! Did she say 10? As of mid-November there had been 7 surprise sculptures found in Edinburgh. Counting the new one, that's 8. What happened to the other two? Had they been ignored, or worse, thrown away?
Everybody told everybody else to take a look...and, very quickly, (whew)...up they popped. Turns out the phantom had made a new deposit at the National Museum of Scotland. It was hard to notice at first, because viewed from the binding, this book had a suspicious little tail peeking through...
But when you turned it around, there, peeking out of pages was an adorably ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex.
And over at the Writer's Museum — it's not clear how long it had been there — was a sculpture propped atop the donations box in the Robert Louis Stevenson room. It was a street scene, with birds, people, cobblestones, all under a dangling moon hanging in the sky.
Ten gifts. All accounted for. And that, it seems, is the end of our story. Somebody who chose and whose neighbors chose to never identify spent the spring, summer and fall expressing her thanks for the continuing existence of libraries, museums and books in Scotland, "a tiny gesture," she called it.
Tiny, yes, but also, in its way, very grand.
More pics here - community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Mysterious-paper-sculptures/blog/4991767/126249.html
Happy New Years Everybody!!!
