From These Pages, A New Form Emerges
The “unbridled creativity” that visual arts teacher Melanie Carr is seeking was there to see — jumping right off the pages. Or, more precisely, right out of the pages.
Students in her sculpture class recently finished an “altered book project,” works of art created from recycled books. The process can involve cutting, folding, gluing, or painting to transform a book into a sculptural form. The instructions also say that by “manipulating the pages and spine, you can generate volume, shape, and new forms.” An overall message from Melanie: There is no right or wrong way.
“I want the students to make connections between thinking and making through their hands,” Melanie said.
That they did. There was a merry-go-round. A sailing ship on waves. Flowers and butterflies popping out of a book. Another that highlighted words or phrases from the book. And there were more, each representing a vision of the sculptor.
“Exploration and experimentation are two words I use all the time — particularly in sculpture,” she said. “I want them to be intentional, but I also want them to find their way.”
When junior Miles Gackstetter ran into a design issue, he figured a way around the issue.
Which is exactly what junior Miles Gackstetter did. He said he wasn’t sure what to make at first.
“After some time,” he said in an email, “I found my inspiration. Cartoon sparks — the ones in comic books that typically visualize an interjection. This abstract shape has always appealed to me and been so fun to draw, so I thought it would be interesting to bring the shape to a three-dimensional scale with this project.”
He also had to pivot at times.
“I ran into unexpected difficulties, which prompted me to really channel my creativity to find workarounds,” Miles said. “When I first started working on this sculpture, I wanted the book to stand up straight and open. [That] design was difficult to achieve when the book's spine wasn't cooperating with my vision. So I had to adjust. I figured I'd lay the book on its spine instead. Additionally, at first, I wanted to cut the spiky edges directly out of the book. After beginning this design, I learned the book couldn't maintain its open shape, so I needed to pivot again. I decided to cut spiky edges out of another book and place them in the folded pages of the original book. Despite these and many other spontaneous shifts in my design, I felt the final piece achieved my desired look very well.”
Sophomore Ria An reached back in her childhood for inspiration for the merry-go-round she constructed, naming her sculpture Merry-Page-Round.
Sophomore Ria An: “As a child, I was always captivated by the joy of riding a merry-go-round and the feeling of being transported to a different, magical world." She said she feels the same way about books.
“I arrived at the idea for Merry-Page-Round by reflecting on the shared sense of wonder and escapism that both books and merry-go-rounds evoke,” Ria said in an email. “As a child, I was always captivated by the joy of riding a merry-go-round and the feeling of being transported to a different, magical world. As I grew older, I noticed that books offer a similar sense of escapism — every page turn bringing me deeper into a new realm of imagination. Combining these two elements, I wanted to create a sculpture that represents this timeless enchantment, capturing the magic of both childhood and literature.”
The project also involves documenting the finished work: three images taken from different vantage points, a bit of writing, and a presentation to the class.
“I introduce the concept of museum interpretative texts to them, and they have to come up with a title for their work and write a label for their work as though it is in a museum on exhibition,” Melanie said.
Books, said Melanie, can provide students with “a jumping-off point — be it the title, color, size, etc.” She said it also helps with her effort to use more recycled materials to make art. And it allows students to reimagine something familiar to them, “to think about old things in new ways.”
“That is really important to me — for them to think that if a book can become this, then anything can become something else,” Melanie continued. “That is the sort of unbridled creativity that I hope they get through the process.”
At first, senior Ava McCann thought she would make a “round, 3D bouquet of flowers sticking out from my book.”
But it became much more than that.
“As I was flipping through my book,” Ava said in an email, “I noticed the repetition of ‘Human Rights’ in chapter titles and headlines, as well as some other strong vocabulary such as the ‘Lying,’ ‘Aggression,’ and ‘Dictatorship.’ I tore these pages out and set them aside with the idea that I would somehow highlight these in my piece.”
Ava said she noticed that some projects “looked more peaceful and elegant — those with flowers in particular — while others’ projects had sharp edges and were more rough looking.”
The book she used was about the Peruvian Revolution. She said that to her a revolution can be “both ugly and yet ultimately beautiful and uplifting,” so she “wanted to showcase both of these ideas and how a beautiful thing can come from something so tragic. Thus, I made the base of my book a rough surface with these negative words cut out in zig-zag shapes, then angled the flower bouquet to overshadow the negative foundation at first glance from above. Lastly, I added in the more uplifting headlines.”
She colored them, she said, to show the contrast between the black and white of the negative words and the beautiful, bright flowers and uplifting words.
“I found this project particularly interesting because of the many possibilities and directions anyone could go with it,’ Ava said.
Ria said she enjoyed the process.
“The act of folding and cutting the pages, carefully crafting each part of the sculpture, felt meditative and allowed me to connect with my own childhood experiences in a deep, creative way,” Ria said. “It was a unique challenge to translate the movement and vibrancy of a merry-go-round into a static sculpture made from books. The attention to detail — like the varying heights of the horses, the pom-pom lights, and the grass-patterned walls— was especially exciting, as each element felt like a small tribute to the feelings of joy I associate with both rides and stories. The project was not just about creating something visually engaging, but also about preserving and evoking the emotions tied to these beloved childhood memories.”
Senior Evie Flowers: “The book first had its pages cut in half vertically, and then began the time-consuming process of rolling each and every piece of paper."
As part of the assignment, senior Evie Flowers’s interpretive text, as if it were in a museum, discussed her process for producing what she called “Paper Nirvana, 2025”: “The book first had its pages cut in half vertically, and then began the time-consuming process of rolling each and every piece of paper. Following the rolling process, small pieces of scrap paper were used to form the shape of trees. Delicately, leaves were cut to add detail and life to the tree. Finally, the clouds were added to provide a sense of scenery and weather, topped off with a swing. The swing represented a childhood swing, a place of many laughs and few worries. This swing and the trees symbolize an escape in Evie’s mind, leading to the choice of “Nirvana” in the title. Evie was inspired to create her version of heaven out of paper.”
She also had a little fun with her museum text.
“Evie’s gift to Loomis Chaffee was her first sculpture piece ever created,” she wrote. “Will go down as a legendary first sculpture piece by a future world-renowned artist.”