Happy November folks! A while ago, I stumbled across the spectacular altered books by Canadian artist Rachael Ashe. I became an instant admirer of Rachael’s work and immediately started following her on twitter. I began to notice on twitter that she greeted each new month with the following phrase: Rabbit Rabbit. This was something foreign to me, so I researched its meaning and came to find out that it meant “good luck” and that it was generally a phrase said on the first day of each month.

So, seeing as it’s the first day of November, I thought it apropos to share the works and words of Rachael Ashe. Here are a few of my favorite works of hers:

• Figure 1: Four and Twenty Black Birds
• Figure 2: The Dovecote
• Figure 3: Little Red Riding Hood

True beauties! And now I’m happy to share a few words from Rachael.

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Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m originally from Toronto, and have been living in Vancouver for about seven and a half years. I’ve always wanted to be an artist and only over time and experience have I claimed it fully as a title. I trained as a photographer in college and it was my main focus up until three or four years ago when I began working in collage and re-purposing books. Now I mainly concentrate on paper-based work, and creating three dimensional altered book collage.

What is a typical day for you like?
I split my time between a part-time job and the work I do as an artist. A typical day in the studio these days has me working on a series of altered books featuring owls. I’ve been enjoying this series because each owl (there are five) has a distinct personality that has inspired new work I’m very happy with. I’m also obsessed with making paper flowers, which will become an installation if I manage to make enough of them.

What are some of your sources of inspiration?
Brian Dettmer and Su Blackwell are two artists that have inspired me. They have completely different styles from one another, but both create amazing work from old books. Nature is a major source of inspiration for me living on the West Coast, and the materials I use often inspire the work I create. I tend to use found objects and reclaimed/recycled materials.

What’s one of your favorite works you’ve created and why?
I have two favorites actually: The Tree of [Un]Common Knowledge and the Forgotten Knowledge series. Both are large scale installation works I made for different shows in 2010. Creating these allowed me to push the boundaries of my work in terms of scale. They were my first explorations in installation art.

The Tree of [Un]Common Knowledge is a 5.5’ x 6’ paper craft tree made from cardboard and book pages. It was part of a collaboration with friends at Resolve Design who created motion graphics which were projected onto and around the paper tree. It was an experiment in mixing high tech media with low tech paper craft. More recently I’ve created paper birds cut from an encyclopedia to decorate the tree when I can’t display it with the projection.

Forgotten Knowledge is a series of altered books created from twenty-one volumes of a set of encyclopedias and found objects from nature. It was an interesting process of custom cutting the pages of each book to fit the individual natural objects. The inspiration behind this work is the idea of human knowledge that has been lost or forgotten. The encyclopedias represent the sum of human knowledge contained in written form, while the found objects represent information about the natural world.

Where do you hope to see yourself in five years?
In five years I hope to be working full time as an artist, with an artist residency or two under my belt. Most of all I want to keep growing as an artist and exploring more ideas of working in the mediums of books and paper.

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A big thanks to Rachael for taking the time to share her words with us! Be sure to check out the rest of Rachael’s works via her portfolio and blog and flickr stream. She also has a number of beautiful photographic and collage works available for purchase in her Etsy shop. Stay updated with Rachael via facebook and twitter.

[image credits: all photos by Rachael Ashe]