It’s become a fairly common sight: boxes of discarded books, abandoned on the sidewalk. As the onset of digital publishing brings reading material to handheld devices, physical books have become less important. Struck by scenes of shuttered bookstores and books rendered as garbage, San Francisco-based artist Alexis Arnold embarked on her Crystallized Books project.

By combining borax crystals with weathered books, magazines and computer manuals Arnold grows them into wonderfully organic forms that become artifacts or geological specimens. “The books, frozen with crystal growth, have become… imbued with the history of time, use, and nostalgia,” says Arnold. In selecting books to turn into aesthetic, non-functional objects Arnold revealed that she tries to use found books. But she will sometimes purchase titles, or use books from her own library if she finds them conceptually appropriate. (via The Creators Project)

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