Recycled Words

I rescue, salvage, and recycle other people’s words

"Browsing through garage sales, street markets and used bookstores I search for interesting, preferably discarded, old books. When I find a good candidate I explore every page. Like an archeologist I hunt for the words that speak to me with new meaning. Intuitively, one word at a time, they turn into a kind of haiku or philosophical poetry that I can call my own.
At some unpredictable point along the way, in my mind, the images start to invent themselves. Using colored vellums, graphite and or India ink to highlight or obscure my words; I create the image of that invention. Though I strive to make each document visually engaging I find it is the words that I value most.
The majority of this work comes from several different copies of The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson printed from 1887 to 1927. Something about working with these pages quietly reminds me that a part of our culture is about recycling ideas."
_Taken from Will Ashford




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. Will Ashford