A moment of harvest in my studio

December 16, 2011

Many things have been kept out of the pages of this website in order to keep them simple. I have little patience with websites that need a road map. But hidden behind these slightly static pages is the image of work in progress, of periods of formation and research, and the ongoing adventure of walking around and finding the material that feeds my imagination.

These first blog entries feel like the blank pages of a new diary, a slightly daunting combination of conclusion and expectancy, a reason to faire le point and move on. I intend them to sum up where I’m standing, in my studio, with the harvest of years of bookbinding, travels, art school, research, after making my first two books, on my way to a third.

I have become what I’ve gleaned, I’m very attached to the tactile traces I’ve collected around me, but since childhood I’ve repeatedly needed to reinvent my surroundings so this new beginning feels good.

My lamp is much stronger than expected. The puppet was hand-woven on straws by a niece and has travelled to China as a good-luck charm in a suitcase. My tables are always covered with writing material, journals and books. There’s a cupboard only for my Rajasthan mementoes. The gesso relief is a testimony to my years at art school, and my collection of ‘long stones’ (mainly from Scotland) is still growing. The square boxes come from an exclusive chocolate shop in Brussels and represent the atmosphere of my books-to-be: rust – with iron nails from Greece and ‘moli’ from India; red and green as a rough idea for South India.