A design commission for Women Artists of the North East Library.

Women Artists of the North East Library is a growing library collection, a public programme of events and artist commissions, setting up contexts and perspectives for exploring artistic legacies of women and non-binary artists associated with the North East region of England.

For this commission I designed and hand made a limited edition of 100 donations cards for the library. The library collection is built on donations and each donation card has a space for donors to record a message/note about why they are donating.

I spent some time rummaging through the library collection. I liked that it was a bit of a jumble, and that it might look completely different as it moves around from venue to venue, rearranged on different shelves, and picking up new material as it goes.

 

I started to think of the library as both a representation of, and a living part of an ecology of people, work, friendships, ideas, spaces and events. There’s something quite mysterious about flyers and posters for past art and performance events… paper remnants of something ephemeral that has been and gone.

 

The donations card print is made from stamps and ink-pads – a stationary staple of any good library. The design is an abstract map of connections, happenings imagined and remembered, books, bodies, movement, places, objects morphing, exploding bookshelves!

 

Description
Design commission, creative direction, lino print