When I studied art and bookbinding, I got very interested in the philosophy of craft. I liked to analyse the process of making, to write about it, and to ponder it. I also wrote my degree dissertation about the learning process in craft. Then there came a point when the pondering and writing started to feel very far removed from the actual making. What I experienced while in the state of creating didn’t match any combination of words I could think of. Words have served an important purpose for me while learning the specifics of my craft, and clarified many issues in my mind that indeed have affected the way I approach actual studio work.
The fact that I again agree to think with the means of words and sentences in addition to the interplay of materials, colours and textures, has been inspired by the incredible group of artists of all disciplines discussing their process on Twitter, and particularly by reading the Objectively Speaking :: Blog of fine art photographer Ian Talbot. His in-depth, straight-talking analysis of his own works have been real revelations to me. They have also spurred me to raise many questions about my own work, and to realise I might need to dig out some answers.

As I’m not a writer or a poet, there will always be an unbridgable gap between words and my visual work. I also feel that whatever I might hope to transmit to the viewer deals with the end product, not the process – that is, I don’t aim to communicate anything about my process to the viewer, the only thing that matters in the end is what the final book in its final form might be saying, if anything. And I shall ponder that somewhat more from now on…