Very Altered Books

We went to the Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City a couple of weeks ago, and I am embarrassed to admit that I failed in my prime directive about art fairs:
Spend As Much On Art As On Food!
So I guess I have some credit built up for the next event.
This was the first time I remembered to take my camera, but I chickened out on taking any pictures of the art. However, I did take pictures of this decoration in the windows of the Anthropologie store:

As we were walking up to the store, I first thought they had made a display out of tightly folded linens and underwear, but when we got closer, I realized that it was made out of slices of books, or maybe catalogs. Very Clever! From a distance, it gave the impression of large neutral-toned flowers. Suze Wineberg's blog also has pictures of the same type of display in her local store, but she was brave enough to go inside the store and take her pictures. At first, I wondered if there is a central Anthropologie window display making place where all of them are created. (Come to think of it, the last time I was by one of these stores, I think they had some great window backgrounds made from dozens of insect shapes cut out of paper and staples together.) But anyway, it looks like her store has paint added here and there to the books, that they are screwed together, and that they are free standing sculptures with a wood frame on the back. My store's books seemed to be put together with tape, didn't have any paint (that I noticed) and looked to be fastened to the window frame. So, maybe they are custom made for each store at a central location. They wouldn't just send each store a description of what they want made and expect the locals to do it, right? Maybe they ran out of books that varied in color and decided to add the paint... It would be a good use for books that have gotten wet and warped and bubbled, I think.