Isaac Salazar’s book origami turns old novels into new art

I was slightly suspicious when Salazar said he’s never taken an art class in his life. The 3D letters he creates by folding the pages of books always look perfect — as if he got each fold right the first time around — but he explains that this is most certainly not the case. “If they look perfect, then that means I’ve done my job well, but really each book has its own unique problems. If I don’t like the way one page is folded, I go back and try again.” This is why even the “simplest” of his designs takes him at least a week to complete.

Salazar has been creating book origami since late 2009, after his wife discovered how Christmas trees could be made out of copies of Readers Digest (like this re-creation we found on Re-Nest.com) and asked her husband if he could replicate it. Salazar wondered if he could make different designs, and began folding the pages of old books to create words and symbols.

I wondered if the words he created had anything to do with the books he uses, but they don’t necessarily. Salazar folded a recycling symbol from a book titled A World Without Trees, and he made the word create from a book about Warren G. Harding.

Books now enjoying their moment of fame will someday fall into his dextrous hands. Fans of the Twilight saga will have to find new ways to express their fandom once Salazar has turned Stephanie Meyer’s books into recycled art.

Salazar usually takes custom orders, but he has work lined up for the next few months. He’s even working on custom displays for a large department store, but that’s all the details we can give you on that. Keep an eye on him via Etsy and Flickr to see his latest work.

Isaac Salazar is an accountant living in El Paso. He has never taken an art class and believed he didn’t have an artistic bone in his body until he began folding the pages of books to create symbols and words, giving them new life as works of art.