[Large holey book
Subtitle: no. 3]
Publisher: [Austin Straus]
Published: 2009
Place of publication: [Lancaster, Calif.?]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 28
Subjects: Artists' books; Specimens
Notes: Title supplied by artist.

"Austin '08"--Inside back cover.

A "burn book" consisting of thirty leaves of colored paper into which cut-out designs have been "burned" by the artist. Straus produced the "sun-etched" cut-out leaves using burning techniques he has been experimenting with since childhood, with magnifying glasses outdoors under a hot sun, and with incense sticks or a soldering iron when forced to work indoors. As the reader turns the perforated leaves, the continuously shifting configurations of shapes, textures, and colors create what the artist describes as "multi-layered aerial views which suggest maps, roads, veins and arteries, and the inner complexity of the brain." The well-integrated pages with holes which allow colors and textures to be seen through from page to page give the book a sculptural effect. "Burn books" are Straus's way of responding to the negative history of book burning. He states "Whereas the Nazis and other totalitarian regimes destroyed the books of thinkers and writers they despised, I burn discarded or blank books into artworks, transforming them positively."

Bound in stiff black covers, with black spiral binding; a multi-layered colored "burned" panel affixed to upper cover.