Reading books + writing words = making art

The artwork of Diane Samuels is based on how reading has shaped her life. For instance, this piece contains the first line of over 1700 books in her personal library -

Do go to her website and have a look at the photo there - a click on the image enlarges it and you can move it around on your screen. 

"First Lines is comprised of 1,740 small rectangles of handmade paper. On each Samuels has painted, drawn, collaged, and then hand-transcribed the first line of one of 1,740 books in her library. The 1,740 rectangles form a map of the world and a map of the books that have shaped her understanding of the world." (via)

The very last "first line" - Call me Ishmael -  segues into another large work, 47 feet long in fact, the size of a small sperm whale. On it she's written the text of Moby Dick, each page of the book as a horizontal row.

Here (via instagram; carlow_gallery) she is working on it -

And also via instagram, here she is with the finished piece and in the background, Scheherazade, a hand transcription in microscript, on 10,000 fragments of painted papers -

There is much more on her website. To finish here, this work (via instagram; carlow_gallery) doesn't seem to be on her website -

A two-part interview from 2014 is here.