Sager is a sculptor in the Book Passage exhibit who shapes distressed books into “evocative, thoughtful and astonishingly elegant constructions” that can include elements ranging from a sea lily stem fossil to an aluminum cast trailing to a piano key.
Sager finds distressed books whose title are appealing or trigger a response that might lead to a juxtaposition of idea. He glues the pages shut to seal their story, then creates his own story. He believes the artist’s job is to make a new story out of old story. The Austin Chronicle described his individual book works as “a complex structure of surpassing beauty” and “simple and breathtaking”. As a child he collected things from nature: shells, rocks, fossils, leaves. Literature, music and architecture have seeded his artworks, sometimes blossoming into fruition, always leaving a trace of growth.
