A monthlong exhibit at the Gilmer Arts Gallery features work by a local artist who literally digs deep into books to craft his eye-catching sculptures.
Ted Wray’s exhibit, “Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover,” will be on display for public viewing at the 207 Dalton Street gallery through Aug. 3.
Wray recently settled in Gilmer County after living in Florida for nearly 20 years. There, the singer and guitarist made a living as a professional musician performing mainly in the Tampa Bay area. He’d already worked for years in the printing industry and painted and drawn for much of his life before first experimenting with book sculpting about six years ago.
Wray uses an X-Acto blade to expose the inner contents of books, transforming them into enlivened three-dimensional canvases. With precise cutting and intricate rearrangement, the “book excavation” process reveals pictures and pages in multiple layers.
“Ted’s artwork is unique and rare. There aren’t many artists who put the time and perspective into this art form to bring a new interpretation to books destined for a landfill,” said Gilmer Arts Gallery Manager Pam Burns about Wray’s exhibit, which features 53 book sculptures.
Wray said book sculpting combines two of his passions, art and a love of books. With each piece, he intends to show the beauty and complexity that can be found in seemingly mundane objects.
“To me, books contain secrets. I like digging deeper because, while we can’t see all answers at once, we can glimpse the beauty of the interaction of chaos and order,” he said. “I cut into the cover as if it’s the frame, and each page becomes the frame for the next page. Sometimes there’s a pattern. Sometimes it’s intricate curves and waves. I want people to spend time exploring what’s in there.”
Book sculpting has become a full-time pursuit for Wray, whose shadow box-framed sculpture, ‘The Spectators,” received first-place honors in the 3D category of a juried exhibition held earlier this year at Gilmer Arts.
His work is currently being shown in three other exhibitions at venues in New York, Rhode Island and Maryland. “Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover” is his first solo show.
“I’m honored and delighted. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but people have told me they’ve never seen anything like it,” he said about the Gilmer Arts exhibit.
Also on display at the gallery through July are pieces from Sydney Randolph Maurer’s “Vanishing Georgia” exhibit.
The late Maurer, who worked as assistant art director at Columbia Records and in several other areas of the music industry before moving to Atlanta in the 1990s, enjoyed painting real-life subjects including famous musicians, athletes and historical figures.
Maurer’s music-themed artwork, including life-size paintings of Ray Charles, Miles Davis and Janis Joplin, was shown at the Gilmer Arts Gallery in June by his daughter, Claudia Bradford, a music teacher for the local arts council who also made the current exhibit possible.
“Vanishing Georgia,” features pieces inspired by important events in Georgia’s history and images preserved in the Georgia Archives. The exhibit has been shown at several Georgia museums, and the Gilmer Arts showing also features selections from Maurer’s America-themed series of work.
Bradford said her dad donated one of his pieces, of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., to the Georgia State Capitol where it remains.
“We are really fortunate to have access to it,” said Burns about the exhibit.
Both the Wray and Maurer exhibits can be seen at the Gilmer Arts Gallery during its normal business hours, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.