Overview

A hand-bound artist book that turns three scenes from The Perks of Being a Wallflower into a physical record of being loved wrong, and then finally loved right. Built around the line "We accept the love we think we deserve."

Process

I started with film research and picked three scenes that share one theme: how early love shapes our sense of worth. Of three concepts (Overlapping Thoughts, Dear me, and You can('t) save anybody), I developed Overlapping Thoughts, which treats the book as a mental archive. Words are stamped, spiraled, repeated and faded, pages tear in half, and thumbprints crowd the text like intrusive memories. Translucent vellum lets one thought bleed into the next, red ink and thread mark the moments of love or harm, and Japanese stab binding leaves the spine exposed.

During critique, the feedback was to be more playful with the grids. I explored container grids (radial, modular, diagonal, perspective and curved) and gave each scene its own logic. The "why" question spirals across vellum on a radial grid, dialogue sits on angles and curves, and torn half pages split sentences.

Outcome

A hand-bound book in cream stock, vellum, red ink and red thread, with an envelope insert, plus a short motion piece. The book shows that placement and material can carry emotion as much as the words do.