When I was looking for a blog that I found interesting I came across a man,
Alex Queral,
who turns phone books in to works of art. Now I for one never would have thought that a phone book had any use other than to look up phone numbers, and take up space. His artwork can leave you "breathless with admiration." Also, you have to understand how many painstaking hours he spends making these sculptures, and also that one wrong cut could end in having to start all over again, no matter how close he is to the end. A lot of people appreciate his artwork one because of the end result, and two the base of his artwork is made from recycled materials. Your probably wondering how he came up with the idea of using phone books for sculptures. Alex was out searching for scrap wood to use for his sculpting when he thought that a phone book could be used as a substitute because of the thickness of the phone book. It ended up that he was right. That was back in the mid 90's, since then he has gained a reputation for the famous sculptures he has created.
Alex puts a lot of thought into these sculptures, he doesn't just start carving and hope it comes out to resemble some famous person. He starts off by drawing the face freehand. Then he places this over the used phone book and uses the drawing as a template for carving the image into the pages of the book, and to make sure he doesn't make any mistakes. Alex said, "It can be quite tense work sometimes because it takes a long time to finish and when you cut something away you can't get it back again. Nearing the end of the carving and then suddenly having it ruined by a careless cut can be pretty crushing. You have to start all over again." He currently lives in Philadelphia, and can produce 2 phone book faces a month. Some of his pieces include Barack Obama, Clint Eastwood, John Goodman, and Jack Nicholson.
I thought that this article could relate to class because it shows a way that people can recycle and how recycling can be fun just by adding a touch of creativity.
To watch Alex make on of his faces click this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OgkRtim_FY
