…, the newly emerging form of the book qua book is simultaneously a visual book and a tactile book, wherein the meaning of the work is inextricably tied to both content and form as well as to the economic factors that surround the making and selling processes. In the most exciting work being done today, a text (idea) is interpreted, amplified, and sometimes even dictated, by structure, materials, and the act of publishing. At the extreme end, Tim Mosely in Brisbane, Australia is experimenting with a form that he calls the haptic book, in which shape, color, the sound of the turning page, and texture (touch) carry the significance we most often associate with a written text. Mosely intends us to read without words. His books are privately published, and the act of acquiring and learning how to read them includes personal contact with the artist. This is not the business-as-usual model at all! — Peter Koch, 2017, p. 22.

Grasping the Nettle (2020)

Grasping the Nettle (2020)
Tim Mosely
Slipcase holding title wrapper around three sewn booklets and one accordion structure. Slipcase, H238 x W158 x D23 mm; Title wrapper, H228 x W155 mm; Booklets and accordion closed, H225 x W154 mm; Accordion open, W616 mm. 14 pages per booklet. Variable edition of 8. Acquired from the artist, 17 January 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artist.

Three booklets and accordion resting on the opened dustjacket.

On 25 June 2020, Chris Ruston read Hart Crane’s “At Melville’s Tomb” (1926). As the Covid pandemic swept over the UK and the world, Crane’s poem paced with her along the Thames Estuary at Southend-on-Sea, and the result was the four works below, now in the Books On Books Collection. The artist’s comments on the materials and techniques involved can be found here along with additional images of the works.

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides … High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

Hart Crane

Photo: © 2015 Janez Stare & Jure Pesko | All rights reserved

“Beneath the wave” (2020)

“Beneath the wave “: A response to “At Melville’s Tomb'” (Hart Crane) I  (2020)
Chris Ruston
Accordion book with slipcase. Monoprint using found material. Acrylic paint, Sumi Ink, Fabriano  Artistico paper, Metal Unryu Gold Paper, Tyvek, Greyboard. Slipcase: H155 x W112 x D30 mm. Accordion book: H149 x W105 x D25 mm (closed), W2515 mm (open). 24 panels. Unique. Acquired from the artist, 20 July 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection and courtesy of artist.