A lot of my work, in various media, is around Spurn – you can find it on this page.

Asymmetry

I decided to look at Asymmetry from a different perspective – that of relationships going awry. Based on my poem, Burn, it is scattered with text and hand drawn and photographic images, some distorted. The poem itself is folded and locked with a dagger enclosure (so it cannot be read without being detected) and held in a small pocket on the last page.

Dos-à-dos binding on Fabriano paper with Canson Mi-Teintes paper cover.
Size: 10.5 x 14.8 x 1.5cm

Harbinger

I thought about Harbingers of Doom, and warnings, and recalled the government publications about how to survive a nuclear attack. I imagined the siren going off and people searching, wondering, “Now where on earth did I put Protect and Survive?”. I made a spoof on this booklet talking about how to survive living with a person behaving strangely: absence, chaos, and leaving – and it’s very tongue in cheek.

Pamphlet, inkjet printed on Fabriano, Canson Mi-Teintes cover.
Size: 148 x 210 x .5 cm

Map of Memory

This work took an inordinate amount of time to complete. It’s looking back at life, those “what if”, “sliding doors” moments. Something happened and I behaved (or didn’t) in a certain way. Each memory has been turned into a street or a place name – and there are 98 of them. Each is hand printed using a child’s rubber stamp printing press (individual letters). The large sheet of paper is then folded and cut so that it fits down into a very small box. Different routes can be followed through the maze of places. It is supported by magnets on a wooden lath.

I have made more than one version using various papers: Context Birch Recycled 80 gsm, Offenbach Bible Paper 60 gsm, and Heritage White 100 gsm, and each is a different size. The box is covered with Canson Mi-Teintes.

Size of work shown: Sheet 77 × 53 cm; folds to box 7 × 8 × 4 cm.

Seam

Seam examines joining and repair through repeated stitching. Each page uses piercing and thread to connect paper, but the repetition gradually weakens the material rather than strengthening it. The work does not aim for a finished or stable outcome. Gaps remain, threads pull unevenly, and the surface shifts. The text follows this process, describing attempts to hold, organise, and complete something that does not fully come together. Seams mark points of breakage while also trying to contain them. The book returns to these points repeatedly, without resolving them into a final, fixed form.

Pamphlet binding with folded cover in handmade paper (concealing a message). Inside pages from Japanese Shoji Gami paper, white cotton thread, typed text, hand stitching.
Size: 17 x 17 x .5cm approx.

Green

As my colleagues know, I wasn’t much taken with this month’s theme … but I discovered that working on an almost unloved topic challenged me and I had to work harder. I ended up very happy with this little blizzard fold book with inserts in a Belgian binding. All the papers used, including the cover, have been recycled.

I looked at the various connotations for green: new growth, jealousy, bruising, and regeneration, and wrote a few words on each topic.

Time

With this theme I was taken back to a song that was important to me as a young, romantic woman—Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle. I’ve become more cynical over the years—time passes and dreams become disappointments—reality steps in. I’ve written a new version and again, time is in a bottle.

You can read the full text of the poem here.

Inkjet print on bible paper held in vintage apothecary bottle.

A line from a book

A book which had a very powerful affect on me and was there when I needed it, just after my mother died, is Grief is the thing with feathers by Max Porter (I was also lucky enough to see the play at the Barbican, starring Cillian Murphy).

The opening line is simple: “There’s a feather on my pillow” – and so it began.

I made a small, soft covered, flip book with perfect binding, showing how the feathers mounted up every day, until the pillow was almost black.

Holy/Holey/Au lait

Since my daughter contracted meningitis on Mother’s Day 2024, a dear friend has lit a candle for her at Saturday Mass. If he has his phone with him he sends me a photo. I gain comfort from the strength of his faith and in his kindness. (After my recent very painful knee surgery he has lit a candle for me too.)

I have made a “Holy” “holey” book using some of the candle photographs on the front concertina. A cutout in the shape of a candle allows a view of the rear concertina which has photographs of votive stands in various churches he has visited.

Blank

I made a small book in a white cover with photographs of me from childhood to now, gradually getting fainter through the pages until the last page is blank, to reflect on the fading of life into nothingness. I know, I know!

Practice

I used to teach ESOL, so was well used to making exercise handouts. I put these ones into the sort of practice book I had as a child. It was fun, but I couldn’t find a volunteer to practise them.

Crescendo

This small book is based on Hedi Kyle’s “Sling Fold”, pressed to lie flat.

Is it about sex? About art? About life? I couldn’t possibly comment. At my great age I’ve learned some things are better hinted at than explained.

Lost

This title, Lost, could only lead me to my daughter’s loss of sight and short term memory. It made me reflect not only on what she, and we, have lost, but what we still have – touch, laughter and memories, but – more importantly – hope and so much love.

The photographs are of her wedding day, her husband and children, things they have made for her that they can describe to her and she can touch, printed on cartridge and vellum papers.

Wild

I had lots of circles of Heritage Bookwhite paper from a previous binding, and they seemed fitting for this month’s theme. I wrote a short poem about brambles and bindweed, and stitched them into this little book. I backed the circles with some drawings from a Kings Cross drawing day, and the end papers had been created at a Phoenix workshop. A wild mash-up – and fun! You can read the poem here.

Quiet

The quiet, so unwanted, is the absence of my morning phone call from my daughter; the last one was on 9th March 2024. What wouldn’t I give to have this silence filled, this peace broken, this unbearable quiet gone?

Forbidden

My daughter-in-law suggested I look at illegal immigration – much in the news these days. I found six of the top countries from which refugees attempting to cross the channel originally came; then found the names, details and photographs of someone from each country who had died in their attempt. I created their passports, soaked them in saline, and then encased them in a box which features thin black plastic, representing the flimsy boats in which these people risk their lives.

Secret

Prompted by discovering that even in this day and age some children do not use anatomically correct language to describe their body parts. “Noo-noo” led me to discover, via internet search, the other descriptions women use! The winged book from Alisa Golden seemed a suitable structure. Edition of two.

Palindrome

I decided not to go for the normal “I was able ere I saw Elba” and instead went for a nursery rhyme, featuring the image and the reverse. The Grand Old Duke of York fitted the brief! In time I shall remake it, with the wheel much further in making the book easier to store.

Open/Closed

I had fun with a Turkish Map Fold book for this month’s theme. The irony is that even with her eyes open, my darling daughter can no longer see, having lost her sight to meningitis in March 2024.

Palimpsest

Churning

It took several attempts to make this “book”, based on the nine books I made when Talitha was in intensive care. Here she ‘Churns’ the book while we talk about it. The video and flexagon were displayed at Espacio with textiles2020 in March 2025.

The nine little books and storage box which were the basis of Churning, the origami flexigon also shown on this page. For the first nine of the ten weeks Talitha spent in ICU I vented my feelings with paint and text, and then turned these into small caterpillar books. I carried them with my for every one of the 70 or so days she spent in intensive care – so they’re very well handled!

After Santiago Ramón y Cajal

A tricky book to make, this one. My daughter contracted meningitis in March 2024, and has been left blind and with short term memory loss. Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a 19th century neuroscientist who drew the dendrites, neurons and proteins of the brain in great detail. These free motion stitchings are an interpretation of his drawings, with each minute piece distorted by damage. They are mounted in Heritage Bookwhite paper, and then bound in a coptic binding.

Liminal 1 and 2

This book illustrates the liminal spaces between the urban and rural landscape of Spurn and its conjunction with the sea with a series of images, abstractions, poetry and stitch. The history of its now lost communities are woven into the pager. As the concertina extends the structure becomes more delicate, reflecting the fragility of the Spurn landscape.

It was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2024.

Hand made papers, stitch, mixed media

Seven is a Secret ….

This little carousel book was made for an exhibition in Portobello Road, London, in the summer of 2024. It is based on the nursery rhyme about magpies.

The Northern Lights

This small concertina book was made to celebrate the first birthday of my beautiful, youngest granddaughter, Aurora. On the night she was born in 2022 the Aurora Borealis went wild, as if announcing her arrival. Images of the sky are overlaid with an old Scottish poem by Violet Jacob.

Of course I’m not

This concertina book accompanied my stitchings of the same name in the Prism “Warped” show in April/May 2023. Drypoint etchings on beautiful Zerkall paper.

Miniature books

I did a lovely short course in the autumn with Royston Haward at CityLit making miniature books. Here are some of my examples:

Life drawing sketch books

Part of my planning for post-op recovery in the early part of 2022 was to make books. I had culled my life drawing portfolios (three or four huge stores of never-to-be-looked at images, so I cut them up, made them into signatures, and have been binding them into books. My challenge was to try a different binding for each book. It was a lot of fun; here are some examples:

Spurn Lines I

Mixed media book with various papers, prints, stitch, cottons and silk, image transfer. Printed fabric cover from original photographs. Stab binding. 28.5 x 15 x 1.2 cm closed.

Spurn Scroll, 50 x 25 x 10 cm

Various fabrics joined together, paint, dye, machine and hand stitching, image transfer. The scroll is wound on two spindles so the central image can be changed, and is held on a stand.

The Brig Emma

Closed: 15 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm. Rusted, painted and dyed fabrics, including recycled maritime flag and net curtains. Hand stitching with unsteamed thread. Mixed media images and marquetry veneers. Gold foil. 18th century button. Image transfer.
This small book tells the story of the Brig Emma and its last voyage. I was able to access original newspaper reports and admiralty records through contact with archivists and the great-granddaughter of Emma’s captain. The bookmark is a copy of Capt Barrett’s mourning card.

Mind the Gap

I have spent some three or four years taking photographs on the tube – of men taking more than their fair share of space at the expense, frequently, of their female neighbours. The book comprises 20 pages and front and back covers in a concertina form. The men’s identities have been hidden, and the images have cryptic comments beneath them. An edition of 30.

I was absolutely thrilled when this book was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, especially following the shortlisting of Spurn last year. Woop woop!

People Along the Sand: a piano hinge book, printed on Japanese washi paper; cartridge spine with map of Spurn Head and names of some of the people featured in the book. It shows the some of the people who once lived on Spurn, and tells a little of their lives.

Street S**t is a double-sided concertina book of etchings printed on either Fabriano or Somerset paper. Edition of five. The images come from a short journey of two parts: walking from CityLit to Holborn Station and from Dollis Hill Station to my home. I collected detritus en route and started to make comparisons – for example laughing gas capsules (H) and children’s dummies (DH); a used condom (H) and a burst balloon (DH). The tube roundels signal the start of progress; if you begin here and have the book, concertina-like, going away from you, the visible pages show objects from that station’s journey – view from the opposite end to see the other journey. Facing pages show paired objects from the respective journeys.

Spurn

This textile book based on the people and history of Spurn, a spit of land at the mouth of the River Humber, was shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2020. Joy!

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