Books become an artist's canvas

This has nothing to do about the interesting things we find among the leaves of used books, rather it has to do with the covers. In the photo above, Los Angeles artist, Mike Stilkey, has used the spines of stacks of used books to create portraits of the human condition befitting the worn canvas upon which they reside.

The Rice Gallery at Rice University in Houston recently exhibited Stilkey's work titled, When the Animals Rebel, through the summer. Stilkey is described as

a passionate collector of old records, cameras, and especially books, to which he is attracted, " … sometimes by the title, or more the look of it, the antiqueness of it, or the wear and tear of it. Sometimes there’s a weird illustration. I’ve got these books and I’ll never read them, but I want them for some reason and I’ve never known why.

Ah... Kindred spirit! But Stilkey's art paints a new image of the old phrase about judging a book by its cover.