Helen Douglas, Summer Alight Weproductions, 2019. 15 x 15 cm, 72 pp. Digital print, colour on Colourplan white 135gsms. Stitched, card cover with flaps. Edition 250. Price £20.

Following on from the Field Works of 2017, in this book plants and insects take centre stage in movement and stillness against the shallow space of the page. Alight in Summer, flowers and grasses cast their shadows whilst airborne insects alight on stalks, grasses, and the open pages of the book. In movement and rhythm, in light, line and colour the book expresses something of the joy of Summer and being in nature: at a poignant time when our destructive relationship with the natural world is made manifest in headline news.

Following on from Field Book (1999) and Field Notes (2006), these four Field Works were made in 2017. Returning to an earlier photographic/book practice:
I went out into the field with a sheet of white paper to find that clarity between the thing seen and all that surrounds it.(HD).

Helen Douglas, Untitled - with interval. Weproductions, 2017. 8.5cm x 27.5cm, 8pp. Printed inkjet, colour, 115gsms. Green card cover. Hand stitched. Edition 50. Price £10.

Helen Douglas, Insects & Grasses, Published by Printed Matter Inc, on occasion of the Weproductions retrospective at Printed Matter Inc, 123 11th Av NY, 2018. 9.5cm x 18cm, 20pp. Printed colour HP Indigo on Munken 135gsms. Green card cover, label title, Hand stitched. Edition 175. Out of print.

"What a beautiful little book!
Everything about it is so perfect.
The papers.
The colours.
The stitching - and the way the stitches project.
The red insect. So good against the green.
The straight lines. The bent lines.
The lines against the white.
The green edges of the covers.
The space.
Etcetera".
Clive Phillpot. Letter to HD 2/06/18.

Helen Douglas, Meadow, 2017. 24cm x 34 cm, 18pp (8 images), printed Surecolour inkjet on fine Xuan paper. Letterpress cover, 330gsms. Edition 40. Price £80.

"Meadow is a simple, fragile object - nine sheets of layered tracing paper with photographs of grass stems and wild flowers in a limited palette of blues, greens, and pale browns. Flipping through the pages is a bit like sitting in a field on a summer afternoon. Meadow doesn't comment or explain or analyse, it simply offers an experience."
Eugenie Shinkle. Source: the photographic review, Issue 93, Spring 2018.

Helen Douglas, Gathered: Grasses with Mayfly. 2017. 21cm x 34.5 cm, 12pp (6 images), printed Surecolour inkjet on fine Xuan paper. Cover. Saddle stitched. Edition 20. Price £60.

Helen Douglas, Frost Bites 2017. 7.5 cm x 24 cm concertina. 14pp. Printed Surecolour inkjet on Mine Paper. Edition 30. £40.

In steely greys by the river, frost encircling the lingerings of Autumn, bites.

Helen Douglas, Follow the River, 2017. A set of 8 books, 9.3 cm x 18.3 cm, comprising of 12pp, 16pp, or 14 concertina folded pages, printed on Chinese Paper, with Surecolour Inks. Colour card end covers, letterpress title with back cover information of set number, date, edition 30. 25 sets are encased within a protective card sleeve produced in 4 different colours with the title Follow the River. The remaining 5 sets are split and sell as individual books. Price £400 per set with sleeve, £50 per book.

In Follow the River, Douglas finds different reaches of the river and brings these to the concertina form as unfolding arm's breadths, each one with a distinct theme of light, colour and mood. Each open spread can be viewed individually, or in runs of 4, 6, 8 or more pages. The first spread contains a text poem, which, integral to the reach of the river draws the eye into the book and a close reading of its pages. Leaves, grasses, ferns, flowers and trees form part of following the river, at its edge. In light and shadow they frame and are interwoven with the water's movement: its flow, light and shade, and reflective colour, taking in its nuanced surroundings, as one contemplative whole.