Last week I launched my new artists’ book ‘A Parlay’ at Leeds Art Gallery. The book is the outcome of a rather longer than expected project that I started just under a year ago. I’ve written about it already in a few previous posts but to re-cap, the content of the book came from a series of conversations I had with individuals at Leeds Art Gallery about the sculpture ‘Atom Body Was Light,’ 1964 by the artist Liliane Lijn. As well as the book I designed 2 new print works, printed by the The Print Project.

I must say thanks to everyone who came to the launch and supported the project. I really enjoyed the event. I also had a bit of a light bulb moment whilst I was talking to the audience who came along. A few days before I had heard an episode of ‘One to One’ on radio 4 in which a Jewish woman who was a feminist but accepted a lesser role for women in her religious life interviewed an older woman about her views one the subject. She was using this older woman, an experienced lawyer and a very successful professional, as a proxy for exploring her own views. Suddenly I realised that the artwork I chose – Lijn’s sculpture – has been a bit of a proxy for my own work. Of course the work I have made for this project has a visual affinity to Lijn’s work because it has been influenced by it. However, generally speaking, I think there is some similarity between my visual use of text and interest in arguably slightly obscure or not immediately apparent subject matter and this particular object that Lijn made in the 60s. I wonder, have I been thinking about value in general? Or have I really just been wondering all along about the value of what I do?!