World Book Night 2016 : The Handmaid's Tale

We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.

The United Artists assembled in the Grand Ballroom of the White Swan Hotel, Halifax on 23 April for the annual World Book Night event. This year The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was selected by artist, performer and writer John Bently. The 16 artists present created Serena Joy, a portfolio of miniprints responding to the text, from rubber stamps contributed by 43 international artists. We were lucky to have rubber stamp authority Stephen Fowler in attendance. After a hard day at the inkpads, a musical sermon by John Bently and the Eyes brought events to a close.

Pleasure is an egg. Rubber stamp by Corinne Welch, printed by Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck 

All Flesh. Rubber stamp by Jane Cradock-Watson, printed by Angela Butler

Serena Joy: the final set, complete with gilded box. 

Photo: Sarah Bodman

You can see all the finished prints and read a full list of contributors on the UWE Book Arts website, where there is also a link to John Bently's impassioned rendition of 'Amazing Grace' and other delights. Many thanks to Sarah Bodman who assembled this digital record, as well as coordinating the event and curating the Serena Joy portfolio.

If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending... But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one.

The Flaw

The Flaw is the April exhibition over at Fabelist, an online exhibition space curated by writer and art director Francesca Goodman.

The project arose from my study of the paintings of Emanuel A Pedersen in the collection of Ilulissat Kunstmuseum during a residency last summer. 'Flaw' was a term once used by whalers to describe the outer edge of the landfast ice; its relevance to Pedersen's work will be immediately apparent to viewers.

Also online, last week I was interviewed for The Herring's Tale, a new blog by journalist Bibi Christensen which sets out to explore Danish culture 'with a London twist'.

Spring reading: art writing

• an essay on the work of Yael Brotman in Scaffolding, the catalogue accompanying the artist's exhibition at Loop Gallery, Toronto
• a review of Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, in the Times Literary Supplement
• a review of The Power of Paper: 50 Years of Printmaking in Australia, Canada and South Africa at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge (catalogue edited by Nicholas Thomas) in Printmaking Today
• I interviewed artist John Abell on his dramatic woodcuts created as part of a residency at Castell Coch, Wales, also for Printmaking Today (see below)