“The book as a structure is the Trojan horse of art – it is not feared by average people. It is a familiar form in the world and average people will take it from you and examine it whereas a painting, poem, sculpture, or print they will not.” – Walter Hamady

An Artist’s Book as a work in progress can be seen here.  “She” was an edition of ten books for an Artist’s Book exchange project. The editions were exchanged with international Book Artists.  

The theme was on a person either real or imagined!

Unheimlich II, Concertina Book shown at ‘Home From Home‘, Leeds 14th Annual Artist Book Fair

“At first glance, Home from Home gives an impression of family, refuge and sanctuary, but upon closer inspection, it also begins to uncover associated feelings of anxiety and uncertainty relating to superstition, illness and transience.”

Ruth writes: ‘Heimlich can be seen as the realm of the tame, of intimacy, friendliness… the second meaning of heimlich is that of concealment’ David Morley

Sigmund Freud wrote that ‘among its different shades of meaning the word Heimlich exhibits one which is identical with its opposite, unheimlich. What is heimlich thus comes to be unheimlich’. The two attributes are not, as might be expected, mutually exclusive. From this idea emerges the phenomenon of the unhomely home.

Freud defines ‘uncanny as the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar’. Unheimlich II (the less common variant) is defined as ‘unconcealed, unsecret; what is made known; what is supposed to be kept secret but is inadvertently revealed’.

‘Body Books’ were a series of books made each month in order to explore recovery from a neurological illness.  A series of ‘one off’ small journals to document progress through recovery.  

 Commissions