200 Books and…

“Two hundred books and…” means that I don’t know the exact number of the different books I’ve made.  I haven’t stopped making books so, depending on when you read this, the exact number might have changed.  In addition I go back to books and alter them and sometimes decide to put them out of existence.  Their number is clearly not fixed.  “Two hundred and…” seems a close enough title.

I’m a book person.  I like that you can move through a book.  Go forward, go back. Open, close.  I like that an image can have privacy hidden between closed covers and can also surprise you when you’ve come to its page.  

I like books opened out.  I love an accordion book opened out to form beautiful zig zag shapes and shadows.  I like both the quiet and the kinetic possibilities of books.  

An accordion book can be seen in its entirety when standing open like a folding screen.  Seeing that entirety creates a context for your perception of the individual images — so you get a two for one experience when the book stands open. 

All but two of the books I’ve made are accordion books.  If it’s of a substantial length, signatures create a compact, strong and easy to handle book.  But most of my books are not very long. 

I feel that the form of a piece of work must serve the intent.  I build books to serve the sequences that I create with my photographs and my drawings.  

The largest books I’ve made are a series of sixteen books that are 15 x 18 inches.  The smallest is 3 x 4.5 inches.  Some have been made in editions of ten or thirty or fifty, even one edition of a hundred.  Most are limited editions of two or three.  Many are made as single books.

I print the images and the text for the books in my studio, the papers are cut and folded and joined here.   The books are bound here.  I make my books entirely here in my studio.