Bristol Artists Book Event

The Bristol Artists Book Event (BABE) is taking place this year on Saturday & Sunday 29-30th of June and I'm delighted to be taking part!

The event will be held again at the UWE campus on Kennel Lodge Road, Bower Ashton, Bristol BS3 2JT. This superb location offers a huge space for artists to display and sell their handmade artist books and it fits in beautifully within the print department.

There is always a wonderfully eclectic mix of ideas, bindings, illustration and materials, with plenty of inspiration for artists and visitors.

This year I will be giving a short 'Show and Tell' talk about my method of extracting text and I'll be reading a sample from my book 'In This Grey Wind'. I'll have all of my handmade books on display for visitors to browse and I'll be happy to answer any questions. I will also have some of my prints, cards and badges and free bookmarks, and for the first time I will be using my press title of 'Wild Bird of the Ink!'

It's a great book fair and definitely one not to miss!

I hope to see you there!

BABE

UWE, Kennel Lodge Road, Bower Ashton, Bristol BS3 7JT

29th-30th June 2024

Wild Bird of the Ink

Isles at the Edge of the Sea

The Isles at the Edge of the Sea concertina book is a departure from my regular text based handmade artist books.

I was fortunate to visit the Outer Hebrides in May 2024; a place that had been on my bucket list for some years. I had longed to experience the wild, wind-wrapped isles, with their beautiful white sandy shores, lochans and hills.

They certainly didn't disappoint! Of the ones I visited, the most appealing were North and South Uist and, I'm sure I left a piece of my heart on Benbecula.

The inspiration for a drawings and handmade books came quickly. I did look into extracting text from online guide to the Isles, but my finished writing didn't have the flow I was looking for to describe how I felt about the place. An attempt to simply use place names also fell short of the mark, leaving the written words floating over the images. I think an audio piece would have greater impact on the beautiful Gaelic names.

The initial mark-making experiments were a joy! Using charcoal, pencils, ink pen, pastels and ink, I used my memories of the land and seascapes to quickly create scenes. 

The five finished eight page landscape concertina books are 80x8cm (each page 10x8cm) all hand drawn on white cartridge paper. Each book is a unique individual piece of art, with one side black and white and the other in colour. Having used charcoal and pastels, the books are quite fragile.

The images below are a selection from three of the books.

'Isles at the Edge of the Sea' 

2024

Concertina book 80x8cm