remnants



it takes a bit to let go of them but they get easier to see go. without a fitting feeling I make a costume/by day a coastguard by night a bear. by not becoming what's expected the corners get darker/the relief greater. soar shoulders crave weightless palms. 

nuit blanche

I've forgotten what it feels like to be somebody's everywhere. I'm off to Paris tomorrow to try to remember. 

Art books/ex lovers



A Book Fair unlike any other. The opportunity to talk/read/listen to stories/ observe strangely  beautiful faces in a white space. The chance to question motives/look closer/ delve deeper/ blush. Flashback faces from seven years pin me still. The memory of your way and you've stayed the same, only happier. Flattery gets you everywhere and I miss you a bit. Half a cider and away away.

fatiguE




A few days of printing preparation took me to a road less travelled, a long drawn out bicycle ride to collect letterpress plates, a train ride to Cheshire where a spaniel slept as the Heidelberg sang. One hundred and fifty  beer mat boards, seventeen measurement checks, two cups of strong tea and a walnut whip  later I was satisfied. This takes me over, the pull + my push, the necessity + my determination, the fear + my infatuation. An equation akin to unrequited love. My happiness rests in the hands of an untrustworthy lover, my future teeters on a see saw. 

Provence light planning




There's nothing quite like  hatching a plan in the late afternoon light on a September Friday en Provence. The sun pulled me to the garden where I lay with concentrated imagination. With a hot tea, a faded neon swim cap, a leather pencil case, a polka dot bathing suit, a refusal for compromise and the wind behind me I planned the first step of my journey (the one I've long dreamed of, soon to be my truth). I've been given the space to see the cinema screen before me, the unfolding white pages beyond the realms of regulation. Here, in this light I have the courage.

Window Pains

Three meters of typed text rising from the baby blue Imperial 200 is installed at 'Odd', George Street, Hastings for the duration of the Coastal Currents festival. The Bibliotherapy Artist's Book Library was in residence at' Odd', providing prescriptions and micro loans to the curious. The window text forms the narration of 4 weeks of solitude in Scalloway, Shetland, unedited, uninhibited, unapologetic, hung for the reading.




Boxing in the rain





The rain beats beats on the skylight bindery, the boxes whisper take time. A heart skip when I think of thunder, a melting pot of tea soaked precision. My legs dangle from the high seat overview, I spy autonomy but I can still see the sea. Box dust settles on my cow-lashes, and I walk out to rinse them clean. x

BABL tours to the Seaside




The Bibliotherapy Artist's Book Library is going on tour to Hastings for this years Coastal Currents festival on September 5th & 6th 2009. Come and experience a unique therapy session and leave with a personal artist's book prescription and an all round lighter disposition. You can find me and my mobile library at 'Odd' 68 George Street, Old Town, Hastings TN34 3EE

bonefolders & bodkins



Contemporary Advanced Bookmaking Course (with me)
Tuesday 4th to 25th August; 6.30pm to 9.00pm

Spend 4 summer evenings at hot bed press adding to your bookbinding skills by creating 3 beautiful and versatile structures. You will complete a compensation concertina book, ideal for recording and housing notes and sketches. An intricate button hole stitch with an exposed spine opens flat to provide function and decoration and learn the hugely satisfying and popular coptic stitch using found papers and ephemera, ideal for binding prints. These techniques will enable you to make your own artists' books and editions in the future. With dozens of limited edition books to be inspired by, you will leave the course bubbling with ideas to apply to the forms you have mastered.
£105, (*£95 concessionary) For bookings contact 0161 743 3111 or 

Therapy & rain



An enlightening Saturday in a muddy car park  saw sunshine/ showers/ puddles/ apprehension/ confessions/ forks/ queues/ heartbreak/ shyness/ optimism/ addiction/ yearning/ smiles/ winks/ tears/ aphorisms/ envelopes/ prescriptions/ anonymity/ hunger/ success/ rain/ cocktails/ jumpsuits.

Art in a car park




Whatever your symptoms, I will diagnose an artist’s book to help you find a way through your woes, or at least distract you from your plight for 10 minutes. Clients are invited to relax in the ‘reading chair’, tell me their needs/anxieties/dreams/desires, while I select an appropriate artist’s publication where solace can be found.
Are you broken hearted/tired of the commuter train/Do you want to make better use of the city/grow a beard but worry what kind/miss birdsong/need to find inspiration/want a good marmalade recipe/need your faith restoring in the postal system/benefit from hearing a fairytale/need reminding of reasons to get up in the morning?
There will be a wide selection of books on loan ranging in theme, format, humour, beauty, insight, and degree of professionalism from well known to not-known artists, available for digestion in the designated silent study area (the back seat of a 1988 audi 100). The fee for this service will be one British pound, entitling clients to a comforting boiled sweet and a philosophical letterpress printed quote along with their appropriate on-site book loan. 
Pop by the car park of the Chips Building, new islington, manchester tomorrow between 12 - 7pm where I vow to help alleviate your troubles.