Women and Books: Contemporary book artists share their thoughts

Muriel Pierce has written a thoughtful and well-illustrated article based on her recently completed MFA dissertation at Dundee University, Scotland, and this article is an extract. It is published in the new issue of Bonefolder which can be downloaded for free. I was one of the artists she interviewed. Here is how she begins:

While researching artists' books; reflecting on my practice; and analysing the reasons why I choose to make books, I discovered that many book artists are women. (Men also make books but they appear to be vastly outnumbered by women.) I began to question why so many women make books, and what drives them to work so prolifically in this relatively new genre because artists' books are frequently misunderstood, difficult to exhibit, and laborious to produce. I didn't want to research this question solely through the answers found in theoretical studies by academics and critics, but rather to hear directly from women themselves who are active in the genre. I did this by emailing women book artists whose work I had seen at exhibitions, and those whose work I had seen on the Internet, in books on the subject and/or in exhibition catalogues.
I asked the simple question: “Why do you choose to make books?”