Artist's Book: Notebook 57

160mm x 137mm, containing 20 pages.
Saddle-stitched, with red card cover to resemble an exercise book.
Brighton, first edition produced in 2003.

This book was inspired by researching into alchemy and chemistry. Old medieval illustrations reveal the belief that a human servant could be conjured-up from ancient recipes. The fabricated human was an exact replica except that it had no soul. The replica was called a Homonculous. The book represents a notebook kept by someone who not only believes Homonculi can be made, but sees them everywhere in the form of shop and display dummies, then documents them in the form of notes and photographs. The paper-clipped pages are actually printed within the book as are the ink spills and typewritten notes.

There are some elements added by hand such as a punch cut, rubber stamp and drawn marks.
The body of the book is printed on 130g cartridge paper.

To read the whole book scroll here:

Notebook 57 has been exhibited at the following venues:

Poetry Books: Reading Books - 25 January 2007 - 24 March 2007
Exhibition will be at the Broekhuis Bookshop, Enschede, The Netherlands.
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/bruik07.htm

New Orleans Bookfair - Babylon Lexicon - 28th October - 30th November, 2006
Selected Damp Flat Books, incuding Notebook 57, will be appearing at the New Orleans Bookfair - Babylon Lexicon. Selected books and my catalogue will be on display in this showcase of artists' books and book-related art.
Barrister's Gallery
1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.,
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, U.S.A

2nd Seoul International Bookarts Fair 2005
3rd June - 8th June 2005
COEX Pacific Hall(www.coex.co.kr)
Korean Publishers Association, 105-2, Sagan-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-190, KOREA
Notebook 57 was submitted along with two others: Which Filter Works? and Running a Secret Society No.20, the latter was awarded a medal in the Book Arts competition. The 2nd Seoul International Book Arts Fair is the only fair of it's kind in Asia, information about the fair will be sent to major TV broadcasting companies(KBS, MBC, SBS etc) newspapers, magazines, galleries, museums, and libraries. There were 200,000 visitors to the fair last year.

This book is entered on page 133 of the Artist's Book Yearbook 2006-2007 by Sarah Bodman (Ed), Impact Press, Bristol, UK. ISBN 0 9543810 9 2

Artist's Book: Anxious Homes

Subtitled: Cursory-Cleaning for the imminent arrival of visitors, or 

How to Give the impression of a Clean House in under 20 minutes.

The book 190mm x 125mm, pink single-section sewn binding.
The cover is satin card backed with pink patterned paper.
It contains 18 pages on 130gm cartridge paper.
Produced in editions of 10 - First Edition produced in 2001

Anxious Homes, is the antidote to all the 'Life Instructions' that surround us. Far from being outraged
at the patronising tone of 'How to do it' books, I have always found them funny. This book provides a
step-by-step guide of how to appear like you're doing everything properly. It contains explanations in
detail of how-to-get-away-with-it. It is a manual for people with better things to worry about than housework.

There are sections on; anxiety and the home; nearly cleaning floors; the bathroom and kitchen; washing clothes; dealing with emergency visitors; and a chart of serenity and anxiety. Anxious Homes seeks to
take away the homemaker's feeling of inadequacy by promoting shortcuts as if they are perfectly normal.

Anxious Homes was inspired by my childhood experience. As a 10 year old, I remember being amazed
at how my mother used to frantically tidy the house before visitors arrived. When I asked her what was
wrong with letting our relatives see us how we usually lived, she was horrified at the idea.
When I started living in my own home I noticed I had inherited 'pretending to be tidy' from my mother.
When my parents (or especially parents-in-law) visit I rush round picking piles of papers off the floor and making sure the bathroom taps are shiny. Cleaning-up thoroughly is a long job and despite my collection of Good Housekeeping Manuals there's just not enough time to be the ideal woman, when you have good books to read, drawings to make and tea to drink.

Anxious Homes is essential for the busy woman.

Future Fantasteek! Mini-Tour Catalogue NOW available for ipads

NEW ibooks version of Future Fantasteek! Mini-Tour Catalogue.
Free to download for ipad.

To tweet or not to tweet

I went to a great event at the University of Portsmouth yesterday, 'Blogging for academic purposes'.
I feel inspired to give Twitter a go, not sure quite what is is though so might have to bear with me a bit...
https://twitter.com/JackieBatey