Kingston, Ontario-based collage artist and author Diane Schoemperlen published By the Book: Stories and Pictures in 2014. This colourful, 224-page book features 73 of Schoemperlen’s hand-cut-and-pasted collages, made with images from the public domain, that illustrate seven stories, which pull from old texts such as The Cyclopedia of Classified Dates With An Exhaustive Index (1900) or The Commonly Occurring Wild Plants of Canada (1897).
Christopher Byrne reviewed By the Book in Issue 12 of Kolaj Magazine. He wrote:
The collages, although made recently, stylistically, textually, and playfully reflect the eras of the publications. This is especially the case in “By the Book Or: Alessandro In The New World”, Schomperlen uses found photobooth portraits to illustrate “Vocabulario: Man, his age and relationship”. Elsewhere in the story, she playfully uses a vintage image of women in men’s evening wear to illustrate “Vocabulario: Apparels for both sexes”. For “Proposal of Marriage”, she creates a tableau of a man at the top of the page swooning and clutching his forehead, while below two reflecting collages show a man with his head in his hands while a woman attempts to comfort him, while behind them is a coloured drawing of a woman in a wedding dress.
This review appeared in Issue Twelve of Kolaj Magazine. To read the entire review, PURCHASE ISSUE TWELVE or SUBSCRIBE.
By the Book: Stories and Pictures
by Diane Schoemperlen
8″x6″, 224 pages, including 73 colour illustrations, $28.95 CAD (eBook $21.95 CAD)
ISBN: 978-1-927428-81-8
Biblioasis, Windsor, Ontario
2014
Available online from Biblioasis’ website: HERE