Feature Artist ~ Carolyn Congrove

Altered Pages is Honored to

introduce you to

Carolyn Congrove!

After you meet Carolyn you will find the 31 Days of Halloween post below.

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My name is Carolyn Congrove and I’m an art junkie and jack of all art trades. I’ve always been an artist and I was an art major in college. I taught painting for 18 years before falling in love with mixed media. I saw my first issue of Somerset Studio in 2000, and by introducing me to a new take on mixed media it changed my life. (Since then several of my works have been published in Somerset Studio, Somerset Memories and the Dec./Jan. 2006 cover of Somerset Legacy.) I’ve never been able to stick to just one art medium (polymer clay, calligraphy, collage, quilting, scrapbooking, artists books, photography - I love them all) so mixed media is perfect for me. I sat myself down one day to ponder what art medium I wanted to concentrate on and the result of all that heavy mental exercise resulted in the realization that creating artists books was the perfect medium for me. There is debate about the meaning of book artists, artists’s (artists) books, book art etc. But for me “a book artist is a person who makes books as their form of artistic expression, and an artist’s book is the creation of the artist. A book artist makes books like a painter makes paintings. An artist’s book is a work of art and not simply a means of conveying information.” I love book art because I can incorporate all the varied art media I love into a book that is a work of art. 

I belong to a large group of artists in Tucson, AZ called PaperWorks: The Sonoran Collective for Paper and Book Artists. This is a wonderful group of artists working in  every medium involving paper. I help lead a spin-off group within PaperWorks that concentrates on iPhone photography (iPhoneography).

I am fortunate to travel worldwide, so many of my iPhone photos are from around the world. The mixed media book below was inspired by my recent travels in Morocco. When I looked at my photos upon my return, I noticed that many of them featured passageways and doorways that had a very mysterious element to them. I further enhanced the mysterious look using photography apps on my iPad. The final result is a one-of-a-kind mixed media artist book titled Morocco. Enjoy!

Materials: Canvas cloth, various fabrics, various fiber trims, variegated thread, lace, original photographs, scrapbook paper, Tim Holtz Distress Paint, brass plaques sewing machine.
www.ashes2beauty.com 

ccongrove@me.com

Instagram @carolynaz