I'm in love with hemp. It's one of the most useful and health-giving plants on the planet, and it's use in history is fascinating; from rope and fabric to it's oil which is rich in nutrients (fatty acids, minerals and proteins).
Hemp growing at the Eden Project in Cornwall
I have a wonderful collection of hemp yarns which I've bought over the past couple of years from The House of Hemp. I stumbled across them at Wonderwool Wales or rather, the glow of the incredibly varied and vivid colours of the hemp seemed to lure me across the hall and past other exhibition stands.
So I thought I'd share a couple of the artist books that I've made with hemp yarn.
This one is woven from natural and dyed hemp around dogwood stems.
In this image you can see that the spine has been done in crochet and I've left three little windows through which the pages can be seen.
The pages are made from wonderful green Khadi papers and waxed 'mineraux' paper from Shepherd Falkiners that I've hand-stitched with linen thread.
Bookbinding materials and papers are another of my obsessions...........but that's another story!
And this little 'book' is in a less traditional format. I knitted a cover for a packet of cigarettes from hemp, then used pages from a book on Freud which I rolled into cylinders, and then printed a label for the front and voila - Art Fags!
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