Wednesday, November 2, 2011

A "poetree" mystery

This is making the rounds on a few blogs and I thought I'd share it here in case any of you missed it.

First there was a tree, a "poetree" sculpture made of paper, left in a Scottish library.

It had a cryptic note and a poem in pieces hidden inside a golden egg.

Then, there was a coffin topped by a gramophone.

This was followed by an Edinburgh movie theatre, a dragon in an egg, a teacup...

The shredded paper sculptures were mostly, but not exclusively, made from Ian Rankin's books.


Were they from him, some sort of publicity stunt? Apparently not.

They came with the note:

"This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas..." and the tag @ByLeavesWeLive

Who was creating these marvelous pieces and sneaking them into libraries undetected?

No one knew.

The coolest part of this story?

A former music librarian with the Edinburgh Evening News thought he recognized the artist and had a name. But did the newspaper print the name?

Nope. They took a poll to see if readers wanted to know the answer or did they want it to remain a mystery. The answer was a resounding "keep it a mystery!"

So they did!

Read about it and see the fantastical photos of all the art pieces HERE.

3 comments:

Deniz Bevan said...

It's such a lovely story! I passed it around to my family by email. Even if Rankin's not directly involved, it must be exciting to have someone choose your books to turn into art.

A Novel Woman said...

Isn't it cool? I love so many elements of the story, especially

1. whoever is responsible is able to sneak them into the library without being caught and

2. the newspaper knows the identity of the artist and hasn't published it, respecting the wishes of the people who voted not to know.

Anne S. said...

Fantastic pieces, and I love the messages!