"tactile dialogues"

"Tactile Dialogues" is another black work and deliberately unstable and "messy" like the coal industry. It refers metaphorically  to the current dialogue about the transition from the use of coal  to other more sustainable "clean" alternatives. The viewer is invited to wear gloves and use a little lifter to ease open the tabs to view the hidden text and code while keeping the hands clean.

(Click onto an image and you will be able to see the images closer up and more clearly.)
The pages have a silvery metallic sheen from their graphite rubbed surfaces. A beautiful surface despite its instability and impermanence which the gloves will show. Also we keep our hands clean trying to come to terms with the difficult issues.
Each page is cut and scarred with deep scratches suggesting the process of mining.  

As I'm still only "scratching the surface" I think there may be a few more black books in the pipeline.

'cutaneous"

My next book "cutaneous"has just been completed. It is another black book and joins the small series of black work I have started for the year. Although it is in a very conventional codex form, it also has perforations, windows and flaps that reveal several layers at a time. The book is about skin and the Chinese carbon paper screwed up and straightened, is soft and wrinkled like my skin. 
I was researching how to make the Japanese cloth-like paper using momigami and using different papers and glues instead of the konnyaku paste and stubbled on some very interesting surfaces and textures to use in my books.

 The results were encouraging and I hope to get back to this artist's proof to make a bigger, better version once I finish my next few explorations into the black.