Bookworks

Bookworks are artist’s books, usually made from handmade paper, but sometimes from clay, driftwood or other found materials.

Poem White Page White Page Poem is an artist’s book with text by Muriel Rukeyser. Made with very fine sheets of paperclay, with a spine made from linen tape and bamboo (in the form of a sushi mat) which allows it to stand upright in the round, like a pot.

The layered pages allow the text to flow through the work, overlapping and interconnecting. The texture of the clay pages is really interesting to the hand, with a combination of strength and fragility, and a curiously skin-like feel that emphasises the clay/body connection:

Signed one-off. About 20cm high x 23cm wide (closed)

In Blue Distances a cataract of text pours down overlapping pages of handmade paper, veiled with very fine sheets of transparent paper so that the tumbling words are seen as through water vapour or spray.  This beautiful, encouraging poem is by Elizabeth Daryush.

Signed one-off. 50cm wide x 40cm high. 16 pages. This work will be for sale in my next exhibition. Now sold.

Fired city is constructed as a concertina book, made from handmade papers with 7 hand drawn pages mapping the London Thames from the Great Fire to the Blitz, with text by Frances Bingham and from the ‘Agas’ map of 1560′s.

Signed one-off. Book closed 21cm wide x 21cm high, open 21cm high x 2.5m long. For sale £350.

The Strand of the Thames is constructed as a fan book with 14 grisaille watercolours (with text lettered in black ink with a driftwood pen) mounted on black handmade paper like a photograph album of the 1930′s. The text is by Virginia Woolf.

Signed one-off. Album closed 30cm wide x 22cm high; open 22cm high x 3 metres long. For sale £450

Suddenly a river is a concertina book made with handmade and silk papers, to be shown open with the light behind to shine through the translucent river. The text is by Virginia Woolf:

Suddenly a river snatches a blue light; the earth absorbs colour.

Signed one-off. Book closed 18cm wide x 32cm high; open 32cm high x 1.2m long. For sale £300

The little ships of England is made from handmade cotton rag paper and sugar paper; the text is by Philip Guedalla; the little hand-drawn boats are all examples of sailing ships that went to Dunkirk in May 1940.

Double sided on 4 pages constructed as a fan book, it opens out to just over 1m long.

Signed one-off. This work is not for sale at the moment.

A river maintaining a small language sets a beautiful text by Peter Levi into a handmade photograph album with images of my own river photos mirrored by the text:

Signed one-off. For sale £250

Looking through is a double sided fan book constructed with 6 pages of hand made paper, setting a text from Alice Oswald’s poem River, lettered with a driftwood pen.

This is the other side, with ducks.

Signed one-off. For sale £350

Stream is another short concertina book with a contemplative text by William Blake:

This book is shown in detail on Riverlight, a Work in focus post.

Signed one-off. For sale £200

Waters is one of the first of a new group of artist’s books called One Elephant books, made by tearing and folding one sheet of handmade paper, rather than constructed with several or many individual sheets in a fan or concertina, like those above. How did it look before it was torn?

The text is from Sonnet by Sheila Wingfield, and I’ve set it coming forth in the spiralling line of the form of the torn paper, to reflect its tremendous steady cumulative effect, as you unfold and turn the pages of the book.

Signed one-off; 12 pages 19cm x 19cm, with its own slipcase; for sale £250, or £300 framed.

Van Gogh’s Clouds sets a text full of colour, from a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to Theo in June 1888. The whole sheet looked like this before it was torn and folded into the book:

Signed one-off. For sale £320 or £370 framed.

Another of these One Elephant books can be seen on a post in Works in Focus, which explores Shelley’s Cloud in greater detail. Many more elephants have come along in the last few months – some little elephants too (made from a single A3 sheet); I’m adding them individually on work in focus posts, including Light music:

a little elephant called Kingfisher:

and Light fantastick, a double elephant, made from a sheet of handmade paper 1m x 70cm;

Some images of a one-elephant book I made earlier this month called Prow (with text by Matthew Arnold) show quite clearly the process of tearing:

and folding:

from a sheet that looked like this:

to this book:

I’ll be adding more Work in focus posts on elephants as they join the herd.

I’ve just made another artist’s book not on paper. Every river is made from five linen canvas panels on hinged stretchers, which form the pages. The opened book will stand along a shelf, or fold to a more discreet width, with just its five hinges showing. The mapped river is the Thames, Ur-river to me; the letters of the text follow its line and ultimately flow into it.

Signed one-off; 5 x 20cm canvases on wood frames, unfolded up to 1m long, folded about 16cm wide; for sale £150.

My largest artist’s book so far is Thames to Dunkirk, a freestanding paper sculpture 1m high and 17m long, which you can see in full on The Dunkirk Project. There’s also an illustrated account of the challenges of making Thames to Dunkirk on my Artists’ Newsletter blog Towards Dunkirk. I’m very pleased that The Dunkirk Project has been selected by the British Library for their UK Web Archive, and I’m delighted that Thames to Dunkirk has been acquired by the British Library for their permanent collection, and will be preserved there – see A topography of Thames to Dunkirk.

(I’ll be adding more artist’s books to this page soon, and regularly feature them in Work in focus posts.)

To buy or enquire about any work, please leave me a note in the comments box below or click on contact details.

All photographs copyright Liz Mathews.

Permission is needed for any use of these images.