Happy Christmas, here are the extra photos of our new books as promised...

The Oxford Fine Press Book Fair, with 'Printess & the p' on show at last, a fantastic weekend which ended with both Christine and Leonie's new books being recognised:

Modulor 

Highly Commended for the Printmaking Today Prize 2013 for Innovation in Printing 

Printess & the p

Parrot Prize 2013 for an Illustrated Book

In Marseille we were lucky enough to stay for one night in Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation or Cite Radieuse. Not only a great photo opportunity but also a relevant base for the book fair where we were showing Leonie's new series 'The Modulors'.

Unite d'Habitation is widely regarded as being Le Corbusier's finest example of his theory of the Modulor, an anthropomorphic unit of measurement for architecture. 

Below is a detail of one of Leonie's drawings from our second base, closer to the Vieux Port in Marseille. A start, perhaps, for a new City Cypher...

Many thanks to Danielle and all who organised the Book Project International. It was a great fair and we hope to return again some day!

Leonie's annual open studio event takes place this year on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st September at SE1 Studios in Bermondsey. 140 artists will be opening their studios to the public and many will be working in their spaces over the two days. Over the last year, Leonie has been working on a series of as yet unseen new prints and a series of new books. 

Visit the studios at Bow Arts SE1 Studios, Bermondsey Project, 46 Willow Walk, London SE1 5SF from 6-9pm Friday evening and Saturday 2-8pm 

Now that the sample of my new book 'Printess & the P' is safely at the binders I can be at one event after another. On Friday 6th and Saturday 7th September from 11am to 6pm I have work in 'To have and to hold: an exhibition of 50 beautiful books' at Flow Gallery, 1-5 Needham Road, off Westbourne Grove. 

Then it is Leonie's open studio event on the 20th and 21st September. 

Here in Thame, new work of mine in a variety of media is included in Sparksartists' exhibition 'Eating Our Words' at Time Out Cafe during the Saturday 29th Food Festival and from 23rd September to 5th October. 

For the October 'Big Draw' Leonie and I will be making drawings and prints with young people re-imaging buildings for a co-op window on Thame High Street. Then we are off to Marseille for the Book Project International fair on 18th, 19th & 20th of October, which takes place in a big tent near the Vieux-Port. We will be staying for one night in Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation building to celebrate our stay in the City of Culture. 

On the 2nd and 3rd of November p's & q's are also showing at the wonderful Fine Press Bookfair in Oxford. 

July

There is such a gap since my last post in December 2012! I have been working on a new book to the exclusion of all else - so below are a few highlights going back. I have solved the problem of registration for block printing on silk and linen for the covers of 'Printess & the p'. 

Look out for p's & q's Press in Marseille in October and at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair in November! 

April: BABE

We had a great time at the Bristol Art Book Event at the Arnolfini. As usual it was lovely to see familiar faces and to meet new members of the book-loving public. 

Leonie showcased the first versions of her new books, 'The Modulars'. Examples of her recent explorations in a variety of print forms, they exist as multiple repetitions of an architectural unit, folded into a playful form. The printed and letterpress versions are due for publication this October. 

March

This was the beautiful bookshop 'Damien' recommended in 'Parenthesis' which I visited in Antwerp and where I hesitated and missed buying a book of concrete poetry. I recognised some images - big blue letters arranged as machines or cityscapes from something I had seen at The Schone Kunsten Museum on the site of Ghent's 1913 exhibition. Now I think it would have been worth learning some of the Flemish language - which is what had made me hesitate in buying the book.  

Despite language difficulties, thanks to a postcard and some research by my brother and his wife, we found the street where my grandparents lived before 1914. There was no number with the address but maybe a 'Marchand Tailleur' would have been near to the high street, and maybe they lived in something like this rather eccentric looking house. 

It impressed me as being rather showy like hats my grandmother Catherina Francesca and her friends are wearing in a postcard from the Ghent 1913 exhibition. Like the nameless book I saw in Damien, this remains in my head as inspiration until I can return and find out more. 

February

Here is the box I made, at last, and delivered to the British Library this month for their copy of 'Places'. The first boxed book is in the Buckinghamshire County Museum's collection. It was made to find out 'can artists ever work together?', part of 'artist's forum' at the Museum's exhibition in 2007 'Clear Skies and Dark Clouds', about different artists working together in the county between the wars.

We made each page with a print and a quote. Jean Mould Hart made this linocut with remembered episodes hanging in the landscape on a washing line. Heather Hunter's lino blocks were repeated to make the box. Christine Lock's page included a quote by Clare Leighton and a page that she cut out minutes before the book launch. This added to the exhilarating experience of making a new book together in such a short time. My place of inspiration is summed-up in the tiny wood-engraving of a tree I can see from my studio. 

Our answer to the question posed by the exhibition was 'yes' I think, although the geographically close artists in the exhibition only worked together very occasionally if at all.