Encaustic Arts Magazine Winter 2015 | Page 67

ERIN KEANE

Who are you ? someone asks . I am the story of myself , comes the answer . — M . Scott Momaday
Books ! Oh how I love books . I love them brand new , pristine with blank pages , primed for possibilities . I love them softened and worn and filled with messy yet beautiful thoughts and words and sketches .
I was surrounded by books as a child . My parents had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves edging the perimeter of our main living space , and they actively used and read the books . Scraps of paper were bookmarks for important sections and page corners were folded down three or four times for the really good stuff .
Each week my mom would take us to the library and fill up a huge bag of books to tote home and read , and then we ’ d tote it back to the library and fill up yet another huge bag of books for the next week . In addition to reading , I always kept diaries , sketchbooks , notebooks , coloring books , composition books , books , books , books .
When I discovered bookbinding partway through my art career , I was stunned to my core and thought “ I could do this every day of my life .” By coincidence my bookbinding journey began around the same time as my encaustic journey . At first they were separate entities in my creative life – the art and the craft , the experimental and the meditative – and then they merged into one art form .