Stone: Ten Bindings

‘Stones’ is the final body of work by the late Faith Shannon, Honorary Fellow of DB. The commissioning collectors Kulgin D. Duval and Colin H. Hamilton had to be patient, as the group took sixteen years to complete. The wait was well worth it though, as the series turned out to be a stand-alone masterpiece. Blurring the lines between fine binding and sculptural exploration, Faith Shannon created surfaces as smooth as basalt and equally cold to the touch, spreading lichen, and folded up-thrusts, to name a few.

Each book comes within a bespoke box, that is already part of the artwork, revealing layer of geological layer, till the book and beyond, as a carefully constructed faint impressions lead onto the handmade endpapers. The making of this group engrossed Faith completely. Living on the West Coast of Scotland, her daily rounds with the dog got longer and longer as they became a main source of inspiration for her work: translating nature into tangible, intimate objects: books.

The books were shown first at the Gabrielle Keiller Library in the Dean Gallery, Edinburgh in 2006, and we are very pleased to present them once more to the wider public. Next to the group of fine bindings, the visitor will see trials and experiments, ephemeras, and even one of Faith’s home made breads, burnt to a black lump, when she had yet again got lost in the process of making …This is the first of three exhibitions that Designer Bookbinders is invited to curate at the freshly opened Crafts Council Gallery in London. We are very grateful to Colin H. Hamilton for sharing the books with the public and his kind support, as well as to Hannah and Shannon Tofts, Faith’s children, for their enthusiasm and guidance.

Curated by Annette Friedrich, Fellow of Designer Bookbinder
at the Crafts Council Gallery, Pentonville Road, 2022

Wed. 15 th March – Sat 15th April
(open Wed. – Sat. 11am – 5pm , free entry, a catalogue is available for £10)