A Thousand and One Books by Mike Stilka

Los Angeles-based illustrator Mike Stilkey creates paintings using old books as canvases for his work. The author himself calls his paintings book sculptures.

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1. No, Mike Stilkey is not a vandal who steals books from libraries. The material for his paintings, which can rather be called installations, he receives from libraries that willingly donate books that are not of interest to readers. And if it wasn't for Mike Stilkey, these books would have been scrapped.

2. Stilky himself no longer remembers why he decided to use books in such a peculiar way. Just one day he realized that the covers of old books are very suitable for drawing with ink, colored pencils, acrylics and varnish.

3. Before starting work, Stilkie selects books for a long time, arranging them by color, spine material, and titles.

4. This is how a bizarre world is born, inhabited by eccentric men, mysterious women and animals playing musical instruments.

5. Perhaps if at one time Lewis Carroll had been not a writer, but an artist, Alice's journey would have looked exactly like this.

6. “It seems to me that my work is like one endless poem,” says Mike Stilkey. When I start a painting, sometimes I don't know how I will finish it. I listen to my feelings, and they lead me in a way that sometimes turns out to be unexpected even for me.

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