Valerie Savarie

Savarie turned to creative writing in her teens to allow her own artistic voice to be heard from beyond her sibling’s veil. Deep inside, the visual artist waited patiently for a time when the shadow would grow faint. When that time came, words and visual arts had formed an inseparable bond and so her book sculptures came to be.

In selecting books, it is important that they be published before 1972 (or, is at least as old as her). Sometimes the book instantly creates a visual concept and other times, she seeks out a book that will echo her mental vision. Taking the written story within, She reinterprets it into a three-dimensional piece by cutting, sewing and painting (all done by hand without the use of power tools), thus creating a multidimensional collage while still leaving the majority of the book intact. Every page is kept as bound as it is important that my pieces retain their intrinsic book characteristics. Each page that is visible is purposely selected to be seen – whether it be specific words, lack of words, images or a combination there of. Words are as important as the visuals she creates when making my book sculptures.