Artist Book Project

This project took place during 2025 as a members-only activity to celebrate and commemorate 25 years of SPW.

We have had a number of group projects in the past and they have all been successful in setting up a platform for shared printmaking experience, often in quite challenging ways.

The Artist Book project has probably been one of our most challenging and productive very largely due to the level of support and encouragement from Open Access supervisors, Yvonne Hills and Louise Hughes, who have volunteered many hours of Open Access supervision. It was also a project of great sharing of expertise and getting to know other members. It was good to see the workshop so busy.

The project also allowed us to produce more technical support information for general use in the studio as we shared results from producing 25 prints with a range of processes.

The Book Project involved 23 member artists producing an image in black and white around the theme of Swansea. There were several meetings where we discussed the themes and the best printmaking techniques to use. It was great to see some first-time printmakers taking part.

It was interesting to see all the different approaches taken to the theme. Not everyone lives and works in Swansea so there was a very varied input.

Having decided on the final images, each artist had the task of printing a copy of their print for every member of the group. This meant editioning the prints to have 25 identical copies printed on specially commissioned paper – a daunting task for even very experienced printmakers.

The book is bound on a concertina format and ‘expands’ to a length of 4 metres on display.

Each artist had a complete set of prints to take away in the form of a book. This also involved working with artist Carole King (Nant Designs) on two bookbinding workshops.