Hamlet by William Shakespeare
(Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft Stuttgart 1925)
Bound by Jen Lindsay, 2002 – 2012
Titling designed and executed by Tracey Rowledge, 2012
295 x 199 x 35mm

Bound in red native-dyed goatskin, rough-edge gilt with tooling in gold leaf.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

Per Ardua MCMXIV – MCMXVIII by Maurice Baring
(Seven Acres Press at Long Crendon 1924
1/50 copies, un-numbered) | 2012 250 x 174 x 13mm

Bound in grey goatskin, rough edge gilt in Caplain gold leaf, sewn on a concertina with leather-jointed and hand-coloured endpapers, rounded and backed and gold tooled in Caplain gold leaf.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Artist's Notes
For this work I wanted to explore a more pictorial response to the text, which is a poem written by Maurice Baring about his time in the Royal Flying Corps and RAF (in 1918 the RFC was amalgamated with the Royal Naval Air Service to become the RAF).

The image across the cover alludes to exchanges of fire between World War I aeroplanes, whilst the hand-coloured endpapers give a diffused impression of a shot down, blazing plane.  The image has been made by gold tooling bullet-shape impressions with Caplain gold leaf.

The binding is signed and dated on the rear doublure and is housed in a cloth-covered drop-back box, with a leather label blocked in carbon on the spine

Surface | 2012
1280 x 287.5cm

Graphite wall drawing made using 72 x 9B graphite sticks.

Photograph by Tomas Rydin
Installation at Formed Thoughts, Jerwood Encounters, London UK

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Artist's Notes
This solid graphite wall drawing, made directly on the gallery wall, explores a particular way of holding a static or moving image; it evoked painting whilst becoming an integral part of the internal architecture of the gallery.

Tracey collaborated with Sarah Warsop over a two year period to make a series of graphite drawings which explore mark-making through choreographed movement and the movement through mark-making. The process began with collecting words and phrases that expressed emotional states. The chosen words and text became a spring board for movement research, and eventually became a working structure in which to develop a piece of choreography. The resulting drawings explore the potency of marks, how physical presence can be experienced through a drawing made by the human figure. The drawings capture the particular qualities and character of the movement without the body being present and in this way, the mark-making and the body’s physical and emotional state are inseparable.

Tracey collaborated with Sarah Warsop over a two year period to make a series of graphite drawings which explore mark-making through choreographed movement and the movement through mark-making. The process began with collecting words and phrases that expressed emotional states. The chosen words and text became a spring board for movement research, and eventually became a working structure in which to develop a piece of choreography. The resulting drawings explore the potency of marks, how physical presence can be experienced through a drawing made by the human figure. The drawings capture the particular qualities and character of the movement without the body being present and in this way, the mark-making and the body’s physical and emotional state are inseparable.

What Isn’t Here Hasn’t Happened Drawing Series
Siobhan Davies Commissions, 2011 - 2016
Siobhan Davies Dance
Photography by Pari Naderi

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Drawing Series (1a)
A collaboration with Sarah Warsop
240 x 140cm

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Drawing Series (1b)
240 x 140cm

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Drawing Series (1c)
240 x 140cm
Private Collection

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Drawing Series (1d)
140 x 155cm

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Drawing Series (2)
240 x 240cm

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Drawing Series (3)
240 x 140cm

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Drawing Series (3a)
126 x 140cm
Private Collection

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Drawing Series (3b)
140 x 105cm

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Drawing Series (3d)
42 x 59.4cm

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Drawing Series (3e)
263 x 193. 4cm

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Drawing Series (3f)
140 x 240cm
Private Collection

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Drawing Series (4)
240 x 240cm

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Drawing Series (5)
140 x 240cm

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Drawing Series (5a)
78.5 x 140cm

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Drawing Series (6)
240 x 240cm
 

Study | 2011
389 x 299 x 29mm

Raised gilding onto stretched vellum with gilded frame.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

The Odyssey of Homer and The Battle of The Frogs and Mice
by Homer (translated by Alexander Pope) [1807] | 2011
127 x 78 x 29mm

Bound in hand-coloured hand-made paper with fore-edge ties.

Photography by John Hammond
Private Collection

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Artist's Notes
I was attracted to this book from the first moment I saw it, I liked its physicality; it’s size and proportions. I lived with this book for a while before I began the process of creating a bespoke structure for it.  This allowed me the necessary time to accumulate my thinking, in terms of how I wanted to respond to the structural needs of the book whilst pursuing what I might want this binding to communicate to the reader or viewer. There are always a number of elements I want to explore when binding any given book.  For this binding I wanted to draw together the way I approach fine binding with the more immediately recognisable book conservation side of my practice.  My fine bindings are conservation bindings underneath the gold tooled leather covers, but the decisions, adaptions to processes I’ve made will largely go un-noticed, as they are unseen and may not necessarily be detectable to the person handling the book.  I really wanted to construct a hand-decorated bookbinding that fitted the structural needs of this book whilst also allowing me to express in some way the meaning of the book.

All that remained of the original binding was one detached board, the text-block was in sound condition but the sewing thread had deteriorated. I first pulled, guarded and re-sewed the book, using the original sewing stations.  The text-block is laced on to a double wrapper structure, using two different weights of paper and a series of folds and turn-ins that double back on themselves, the front and rear covers then become heavy enough for the depth of the text-block.  The colour scheme for the decorated cover paper has been taken from the colours and tones of the staining and discolouration from within the text-block and its edges.  The decoration to the cover is a multi-layered image, that for me draws on imagery from The Odyssey, but importantly also, draws on the history of decorated papers, so as not to jar with a re-bound antiquarian book.

Even before I knew what structure I would devise for this book, I had a sense it would be bound in paper.  I really like the feel of a paper cover that is mainly un-adhered, when it feels strong and protective of the text-block and yet flexible at the same time, there’s a beauty in this combination, both in look and feel and it all comes through how the book handles when it’s opened and read.  It was this ‘feel’ that I carried with me in all the decisions that I made about the structure, until I reached the point when the structure did all that I had in mind. I created a binding for this book that I had a sense of from the outset, this ‘feel’ isn’t a tangible thing, its something that slowly emerged through experimentation with materials and different structural ideas.  It was a long process of trial and error, making a sample binding first and trying out different ways of constructing the binding before I eventually got it right. 

The Essence of Beeing by Michael Lenehan with Illustrations by Alice Brown-Wagner | 2010
(The Sherwin Beach Press 1992)
341 x 254 x 17mm

Bound in black goatskin, gold-tooled.

Private Collection

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Artist's Notes
A lot of decisions have gone on under the cover of this book, that’s what fascinates me about binding books; it’s so technical and so process driven. Yet to get the right balance in my work, I have to keep focused on what I want the book to look and feel like; this thinking is based on my response to what the book is about and what structural demands I need to consider. Then there is the surface of the object, what will my mark be, the mark that will show to others.

The image I created for this book draws the content on to the cover, whilst enabling me to continue my exploration of mark-making. The image appears spontaneously drawn and yet it is gold-tooled: a process that employs exacting skill, is utterly precise and couldn’t be further removed from the marks it recreates.

Vathek
by William Beckford with Illustrations by Marion V. Dorn
(The Nonesuch Press 1929) | 2010
233 x 171 x 25mm

Bound in Biscuit goatskin, with top edge rough-edge gilt, with leather-jointed and hand-coloured endpapers; rounded-only spine and with leather onlays.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Collection of London College of Communication library (LCC), part of University of the Arts London

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Artist's Notes
The idea for this work began with the illustrations by Marion V. Dorn.  The image on the front cover explores the nature of drawing: the coloured leather onlays that make each of the textured lines are a re-creation of pencil marks from an unintentional drawing I’d made.

I explored the visual play between different stuctural elements of a fine binding, I sewed red endbands and made red leather-jointed endpapers, to give the impression of a red rubber band encircling the spinefold of the book.  I also hand-coloured the endpapers with colour pencil crayons to create a varying frame of colour when the book is open.

The binding is signed and dated on the rear doublure and is housed in a red cloth-covered drop-back box with a leather title label blocked in blind.

Sundrie Pieces by George Herbert
(Gwasg Gregynog 2003) | 2009
313 x 194 x 24mm

Bound in chestnut brown goatskin, gold-tooled.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

Chagall Glass at Chichester and Tudeley
by Patrick Reyntiens | 2009
219 x 150 x 15mm

Bound in purple goatskin, gold-tooled.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Artist's Notes
This commission is bound in purple goatskin, with purple goatskin doublures and leather-jointed end-papers. The endpapers are made from hand-coloured purple and turquoise Japanese paper and all three edges are coloured with purple and turquoise acrylic paint. The book has hand-sewn turquoise polyester endbands, is rounded only and has laced-on laminated pasteboards.  The image is tooled in gold leaf, using finishing tools I made myself.

The binding is signed and dated on the rear cover and is housed in a turquiose cloth-covered drop-back box with a leather title label on the spine.

The design for this commission developed from the clients love of gold-tooling, the idea of gold tooling first seemed at odds with Chagall’s stained glass, until I created this image, which felt like a good meeting point between Chagall’s work and my own. The image is interesting for me, as my gold tooled images normally play with movement, this image, is instead about stillness, heightened with the mellow grain in the leather.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman [1779] 
(3 volumes) | 2009   
175 x 110 x 20, 20 and 25mm

Bound using original boards, gold-tooled.      

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Artist's Notes
I created this structure in response to the needs of the volumes. I first removed the covering leather from the detached boards, so that I could re-use them; the hand-made paper covering the spine extends on to the inside of the boards to provide the new board attachment as well as new paste-downs. Each volume is gold tooled across the cover.

Mayflies of The Driftless Region | 2009
Wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec with identifications by Clarke Garry. Bound collaboratively with Kathy Abbott
264 x 190 x 15mm

Hand-coloured non-adhesive paper binding, with the title hand lettered along the spine.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

Thrown
630 × 540mm (each)
A collaboration with David Clarke | 2009
15 impact drawings and 15 lead objects

Paper, gesso, zinc white powder, lead, carbon paper, silver and silver plate.

Photography by David Clarke

Artist's Notes
Thrown captures the moment of impact between an object and the surface of the gessoed paper. To decide on an action and surrender control over the outcome, allowed us to question authorship and controlling the aesthetic of a finished work.

Notes for a Future Work 1 | 2009 1714 x 698 x 17mm
Graphite, gesso, MDF

Solid graphite drawing on a gesso ground.

Artist's Notes

This graphite work explores the nature of reflection through an ever-changing surface image. By capturing the movement of people and the changing light and internal architecture of the space it inhabits, it is able to hold and subdues what it reflects, it has a way of slowing down time.

Detour | 2008
59 x 135 x 61mm

Pair of antique door handles, covered in mid-brown calf-skin, gold-tooled, housed in bespoke silk covered box.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Artist's Notes
Detour speaks of a dichotomy within bookbinding: that newly bound books need to be handled with great care, and yet antiquarian books are beautiful because of their patina of use. The ultimate dichotomy was that I quite literally had to go on a detour to realise this work: I collaborated with master bookbinder Kathy Abbott and then a master in leather moulding and a master in leather stitching. I then gold tooled the composite design. The aim was to make an object that echoed the period of a Huguenot house in Spitalfields London, in which this site specific work was exhibited. Detour is now housed in a silk-covered bespoke box. This choice of covering material reflects the room in which I showed the work, as it was originally the room in which a Huguenot silk merchant would have sold his cloth.

Shift 1 | 2008
250 x 215 x 30mm

Framed gilded gesso panel on wood.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Private Collection

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Shift 2 | 2008
270 x 238 x 44mm

Framed gilded gesso panel on wood.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Shift 3 | 2008
290 x 225 x 30mm

Framed gilded gesso panel on wood.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Private Collection

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Shift 4 | 2008
317 x 273 x 44mm

Framed gilded gesso panel on wood.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Trace | 2008 349 x 462mm

Colour felt tip on mountboard.

This work was made by the imprint of the automatic drawings: ‘Arctic Drawing Series’ I & II’, made on the Cape Farewell 2008 Expedition to Disko Bay.

Photography by the artist
Private Collection (sold through Artist Support Pledge on Instagram: a not for profit company founded by Matthew Burrows Studio in 2020, to support artists and makers during Covid-19)

Arctic Polaroid
A collaboration with Vanessa Carlton | 2008
107 x 88mm

Polaroid, felt tip pen.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private collection

Artist’s notes This felt tip drawing was made by setting up a pendulum underneath the chair in my cabin, in order to capture the movement of the Arctic sea whilst on board a Russian shipping vessel in West Greenland in 2008, when I was privileged to take part in Cape Farewell’s expedition to Disko Bay, to raise awareness about climate change. 
This automatic drawing system intuitively developed as a way of recording and capturing an exact moment in time and in response to the scientific graphs being collected during the expedition. 

Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.1
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
69°10.46’N   53°43.10’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.2
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
69°10.42’N   53°36.75’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Cape Farewell Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.3
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
69°10.42’N   53°36.75’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.4
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
69°10.42’N   53°36.75’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.5
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
69°10.40’N   52°40.00’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Cape Farewell Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no. 6
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
69°10.40’N   52°02.34’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.7
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
69°06.1’N   51°23.8’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.8
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
29 September
69°08.1’N   51°14.4’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.9
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
29 September
69°02.73’N   51°22.00’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.10
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
4 October
69°47.5’N   55°35.7’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.11
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
4 October
69°37.40’N   55°02.99’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Cape Farewell Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.12
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
4 October
69°32.71’N   55°03.00’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Cape Farewell Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.13
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
4 October
69°32.71’N   55°03.00’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.14
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
5 October
66°59.1’N   54°13.4’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 1, no.15
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
5 October
66°46.29’N   54°08.49’W
350 x 460mm

Black felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arcticles

Nancy Campbell first wrote about Tracey's arctic drawings in Crafts Magazine 2009.  In 2013 she wrote about them for the Huffington Post. 

Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.1
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
29 September
69°02.73’N   51°22.00’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.2
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
29 September
69°10.2’N   51°17.6’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Cape Farewell Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.3
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
30 September
69°15.30’N   51°05.7’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.4
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
30 September
69°15.30’N   51°05.7’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Cape Farewell Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.5
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
30 September
69°52.01’N   51°46.83’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.6
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
1 October
70°46.28’N   54°38.9’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Cape Farewell Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.7
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
1 October
70°52.52’N   54°13.78’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 2, no.8
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
1 October
70°52.52’N   54°13.78’W
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Cape Farewell Collection

Artist’s notes
This series of felt tip drawings were made by using my arm as a pendulum, to capture the movement of the Arctic sea whilst on board a Russian shipping vessel in West Greenland in 2008, when I was privileged to take part in Cape Farewell’s expedition to Disko Bay, to raise awareness about climate change. This automatic drawing system intuitively developed as a way of recording and capturing an exact moment in time and in response to the scientific graphs being collected during the expedition. 
After the drawing were made, I submerged them in Arctic water. These works are both of and by the sea and for me resonate as emotional landscapes. 

Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.1
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
27 September
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.2
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.3
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
28 September
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.4
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
30 September
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.5
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
30 September
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.6
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
1 October
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.7
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
1 October
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.8
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
1 October
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.9
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
2 October
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.10
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
3 October
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.11
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
3 October
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.12
Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition
4 October
350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper. 
Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.13 Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition 4 October 350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.  Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.14 Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition 4 October 350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.  Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

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Arctic Drawings: Series 3, no.15 Cape Farewell 2008 Disko Bay Expedition 5 October 350 x 460mm

Colour felt tip and Arctic water on paper.  Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Death of a Hero
by Richard Aldington (2 volumes) | 2008
270 x 214 x 69mm

Bound in maroon goatskin, tooled in black carbon and Platinum leaf.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

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Artist's Notes
This commission is bound in maroon goatskin, with maroon goatskin doublures and leather-jointed end-papers. The endpapers are made from Japanese paper, with a grey stiff leaf and a hand-coloured folio as the first coloured, the remaining folios are the same grey as used for the stiff leaf. The hand-painted folios match in each volume, but are different in volume one and two, to reflect the narrative in the text. The edges are rough-edge gild on all three edges with Caplain gold leaf.  The book has hand-sewn endbands, is rounded only and has laced-on laminated boards.  The image is tooled in black carbon and Platinum leaf.

The finishing tool made for this commission works both as a light and frivolous decoration on volume one, which is mainly tooled in Platinum leaf and tooled mainly in carbon on volume two to reflect the sombre and dark nature of the aftermath of World War I.  The idea for making a finishing tool with a textured surface, came from my wanting to evoke the mental wreckage of war on the soul, through to the actual crushed metal objects and long forgotten fragments beneath the ground on the battle fields.

The binding is signed and dated on the inside of each rear cover.  The bindings are housed in a cloth-covered drop-back box, with a tooled leather label on the spine.

Tread Carefully (edition of 9) | 2008
104 x 143mm

Blind-tooled image on paper.

Photography by David Clarke

Essays on Shakespeare’s
Dramatic Characters [1784] | 2007
154 x 101 x 19mm

Hand-coloured, hand-made paper binding, gold-tooled.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Collection of Neale Albert

King Lear by William Shakespeare | 2007
166 x 105 x 16mm

Bound in brown goatskin, blind-tooled on the front cover and tooled in red gold on the front board edge and doublure.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Limited
Private Collection

Bogeyman  | 2007
407 x 276 x 20mm

Gesso panel with pastiglia image on wood.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

Satyr Against Vertue by Oldham [1679] | 2007
207 x 173 x 13mm

Bound in chestnut brown goatskin, gold-tooled.         

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Nicholas Fisher Collection

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Artist's Notes
This commissioned binding is sewn onto a concertina, which is rounded and backed. The appearance and function of the book is that of a standard fine binding, but the concertina ensures that there is no stress on the spine folds and for the pages to open completely flat.  The book has hand-sewn endbands and laced-on laminated pasteboards.  The overall image is tooled in Moongold leaf using one decorative finishing tool.  The binding is signed and dated on the inside of the rear cover and is housed in a cloth-covered drop-back box, with a gold-tooled leather label on the spine.

This gold-tooled image is designed to sit well with the period and nature of the text-block, it also allowed me to further develop my interest to work, both structurally and aesthetically in harmony with antiquarian books.

Shelley (Doves Press 1914) | 2007
240 x 177 x 25mm

Bound in dark navy goatskin, tooled in gold leaf.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Limited
Private Collection

Fly I – VI | 2007
55 x 14mm

Gilded gesso discs on wood, painted with egg tempera, water colour and ox gall.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
Private Collection

Not Monday | 2006
96 x 264mm   

Raised image tooled by ‘blinding-in’ on the reverse side of hand-made paper with brass hand finishing tools (specific to gold tooling).

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd Private collection

Auggie Wren's Christmas Story by Paul Auster
with illustrations by Brian Cronin
(Delos Press 1991) | 2006
268 x 201 x 16mm

Bound in native red goatskin, sewn on a stub, with leather-jointed endpapers, rounded and backed and gold-tooled in Caplain gold leaf.

Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd
The British Library Collection

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Artist's Notes
Bound in native red goatskin, with matching leather doublures.  The leather-jointed endpapers are made with hand-made paper; the book has hand-sewn endbands and all three edges are coloured with graphite. The single-section text-block is sewn on a stub, which is overcast onto archival tapes; the stub is rounded and backed. The laced-on boards are made with laminated archival watercolour and kraft paper.

The image tooled on the front cover is tooled in Caplain gold leaf, using four finishing tools which I made specifically for this image. The binding is signed and dated on the inside of the rear board.  The binding is housed in a cloth-covered double-tray drop-back box, with the title and author gold tooled in Caplain gold leaf on a native red goatskin label.

When I was commissioned by The British Library to bind a book for their collection, I was able to choose the text-block.  Without any hesitation I chose to bind Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story by Paul Auster.  I bought the book at the Rocket Gallery some years ago with a view to rebinding it.  I was very attracted to the book because of the balance between the illustration on the title page and the typography.  It has also turned out to be a short story that I have really enjoyed reading and re-reading over the years. 

This binding, is in fact the second binding I’ve created for this text-block; the first I pulled, as I wasn’t entirely happy with it technically.  At first I found it difficult to see past the last image I had created in response to the text, as it just seemed so right.  Due to the timescale of this commission, I had to alter my normal working practice, which is to resolve the design prior to commencing the binding.  It wasn’t in fact until I’d bound the book that I resolved the design: for me this felt like a huge risk.  The colour scheme is the same as I’d chosen and used before, as the colours work so well with the colours in the text-block; the structure is also the same as I had used previously, as it enables the single section to open completely flat as well as increase the width of the spine for rounding and backing. 

I read and re-read the story as I was binding the book, as a result, a strong sense of an image grew, which I developed by working on a drawing over a period of about 4 days.  In the drawing and therefore the gold tooled image I tooled, I wanted to give a sense of the street corner that Auggie Wren took his photographs from, at the same time and place each day.  The tooled impressions, for me, symbolise the footsteps of the many people that passed that spot at the moment Auggie Wren took his photographs over the years of his project.  I also wanted the image to be open to the interpretation of being like many pairs of eyes as, for me, the story also makes you think about how each of us see and interpret things. 

On completion, I felt that this image is more appropriate for the text than the previous binding I made. As a fine bookbinder, I feel my role is not to create a literal interpretation of the text on the cover, but to create the right balance of structure, materials, colours and image, to work like a physical and visual introduction to the text that awaits the reader.