I am fascinated by the possibilities of artist’s books. I’ve made a few and at one stage set up a little publishing enterprise called Wild Conversations Press. (It faded away because I have no business sense whatsoever). More recently, I’ve used this website to “publish” what I would once have turned into some form of artist’s book. Although doing this is simpler than paper-based publishing, costs readers nothing, and is almost certainly better for the environment, I do miss the physical qualities of a book I can hold in my hands.

A while back I read the American poet and environmental writer Barbara Hurd’s Listening to the Savage: River Notes and Half-Heard Melodies (2016) and was intrigued by her including short phrases she had heard her granddaughter Samantha say. They sounded like lines from poems. Two summers ago, re-reading the book, I noted down some of those phrases and then used them as a starting point for making a series of small images, most of which were not finished until this summer and some of which have been abandoned. Here are some that I’ve kept.