Books, Scrolls and Ripples: In Search of an Audience through the Printed Works of Helen Douglas

Chris Taylor

doi:10.3390/arts9010035

Abstract

In this interview, artist and small press publisher Dr. Helen Douglas appraises the development of the artist’s book from its emergence in the 1950s and 1960s to seeking public recognition as a bone fide art form in the mid-1970s, through to the current global attention that it now attracts. Notions of the mass-produced and the handmade are questioned and examined in light of the freedom, cheapness and accessibility of digital technologies versus the time and labour of the artist in search of the haptic, intimate and conceptually complex experience.

Highlights

In August 2019, I visited the studio of internationally respected artists’ bookmaker and publisherHelen Douglas
Located in the secluded Yarrow valley in the Scottish Borders, Deuchar Mill was the home of the Weproductions imprint for over thirty years until Douglas and partner Telfer Stokes separated in 2004
Press (Ron King), Coracle Press (Simon Cutts and Erica van Horn), Tetrad Press (Ian Tyson) and the self-titled Colin Sackett, Weproductions epitomised the significance of the self-publisher, collaborating on, designing and printing numerous seminal book works that placed it at the forefront of establishing the genre as a primary medium in art practice

Summary

Introduction

In August 2019, I visited the studio of internationally respected artists’ bookmaker and publisher. Breaking new ground through her use of both paper and screen technologies, it seemed to me that Douglas was well placed to analyse whether the artist’s book genre has experienced a shift in audience expectations and reception as the analogue and digital collide. It was a young student-artist who said this, and I realised they were coming with a concept of what they thought the artist’s book was, and it was to do with the more hand-produced book, the “beautiful book”, again, if you want for a better term. 2800 books were printed—and that’s a lot of books—and they were reasonably priced at £7.99 and were sold in regular bookshops I began to realise that the audience who were coming to book fairs were wanting something different. People were wanting this very tactile, handcrafted sort of book

How would you describe your books up until then?

Just screen based or is it printed as well?