2007
mixed media
24 x 17 x 1.5cm

“Textbook” is based on the fact that the words “text” and “textile” have a common root: Latin textus means woven. A multitude of yarns is used to compose images and texts in terms of threads.

Each double page collects and “describes” a specific aspect of yarns such as their colour, material or texture. The resulting inventory is held together by a title page and a table of contents. Some of the yarns have played an important role in my sculptural work.

"An ancient metaphor:
Thought is a Thread, and the raconteur is a spinner of yarns -- but the true storyteller, the poet, is a weaver. The scribes made this old and audible abstraction into a new and visible fact. After long practice, their work took on such an even, flexible texture that they called the written page a textus, which means cloth."

Robert Bringhurst, "The Elements of Typographic Style"

This book work was commissioned on the occasion of a Special Collections exhibition at the University Gallery Leeds, curated by John McDowall and Chris Taylor in 2007 for "pages", a project supported by the Arts Council of England.

It is part of Special Collections of Artists' Books at Leeds University Library.
Link to the catalogue record.

A 3rd edition of textbook has been commissioned by Manchester Metropolitan University's Special Collection.
Link to catalogue record