Wreck This Journal- Crack the Spine

It was either in year 10 or year 11 that I first came across Keri Smith's 'Wreck This Journal', my friend Beth had one. It was brilliant- a lesson in viewing creative destruction as a way to access art. Well, more... well it's a lot of fun to actually get to wreck something. It appeals to the childish instinct that sees a beautifully crafted sandcastle and wants nothing more than to jump on it.

Now, a few years later, I have been gifted my own by my lovely brother and sister-in-law. I have my own! Which means only one thing, it is time to follow orders and wreck it.

The question is where to start. After all, the order of the destruction is irrelevant. The end result is still a mess. So where to start... well last night, whilst sitting on my own in the dark I came across a command in the book that sent tingles up my spine.

Crack the spine.

If there is one label I am happy to have applied to me, it is that I am a bookworm. And like all bookworms I find the idea of dog-earing pages or cracking the spine physically painful. How could I intentionally do this to a gift? To a book? To a book?!How could someone who made the book, who most likely a lover of books themselves to create this format ask this of me? What could Ms Smith possibly want from me?

I have no idea how long I sat there in a daze, a cold sweat forming in the back of my neck. I knew I had to start here. If I couldn't do this- well what was the point of going on? (On with the journal, not on with life. I'm not that melodramatic).

So how to approach it?

Well... vertebra make up the spine right? And they have a spinious process! Easy I'll just crack one of them- or draw a cracked one! There! Problem solved!

Right?

Wrong of course. The fact is that the cracking of the books spine had to be that. It was a challenge I had to face up to and take face on. Coming up with creative excuses didn't solve the problem that if I couldn't face up to cracking to books spine, I wasn't going to be able to truly wreck the journal, and I would fail the artistic project.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. It was time for the plaster approach. I jumped to my feet and snapped the book sharply open and pulled down on the spine.

I'd done it. I'd intentionally crack the books spine.

I ran my finger along the newly scared back and wondered what I'd learned. The big thing was the book now felt real. As much as I don't like cracking spines after the end of the second read most of my books end up with them. Those scars show that the book and I have been on a journey together, and it's shaped my mind and distorted the books binding. It makes the book real, like it's grown up. Now the journal is real. It has been forced to go from being brand-new to looking well used in one movement.

It's like when you go through your first emotional loss as a child. Suddenly there's a new scar that makes up your identity and there is no going back.

I then used a Dalek to press the spine down further in a artistic display of just how evil book destruction is....

So, where to from here? Now that I've taken up a career of book destruction the sky is the limit! Have you ever wrecked a journal? How far did you get? Did you have any traumatic experiences? What was the most fun? And what should I do to wreck it next?

~Alice