Helen Douglas, Within the Bloom, 2022
19 metre long x 22.5cm high concertina, comprising 114 hand folded pages. Giclée print on 150 gsm Munken Polar Rough. Vermillion card end covers. Edition 10. Price £500.

This long concertina is an immersive exploration of Deuchar Mill garden at midsummer. Amongst grasses and flowers Douglas shifts page focus to and fro from closeup to distance in rhythmic movement and phrasing. Within the radiant infusion of colour insects fly in pheromonal attraction, notating and enriching the immersive sonorous way with neumes.

"On the 15th June 2021 I saw a small butterfly, the Northern Brown Argus within my garden. It had flown in from the hill. The butterfly stayed over midsummer. It focussed with other flying insects a fullness within the bloom. This became the inspiration for this book ".

Helen Douglas, SETTING, Weproductions, 2020. 12x18cm, 432pp, offset printed, full colour on Galerie Art Matt, 135gsm. Threadbound, card cover with dust jacket. Edition 500. ISBN 978 09550987 5 8. Price £25.

This book is set in the time of Covid, Spring and early Summer 2020.

In lockdown my focus became the birds within my garden, the trees, the sky and all that settled within and flew overhead. Following the swallows led me out into the field by the Mill, open to the sky, to the gathering storm clouds and settings west.

In this visual narrative Douglas charts the unfurling of spring, chronicling the birds she saw in the trees, branches and sky within the cycles of both sun and moon. By day and night, skies of blues and cloud settings form backdrops to branches and birds perched in song and patient watchfulness. The blackbird a garden star, flies back and forth, high in the alder tops, singing with increasing flourish morning, moon and night. A curlew passes over, bats fly. A lark hovers to ascend, followed by a cortege of starlings, herons and oyster catchers. All the while, swallows soar out, above and below the moon’s crescent. Within the clarity of lockdown Nature breathes; all comes closer and all connects. With the hovering swoop of raptures and the looming of storm clouds, in increasing heated intensity, is ominous peril conveyed. This is the narrative SETTING, set within the turning pages of this book.

Helen Douglas, Flourish by the Water's Edge Weproductions, 2019. 32x22cm, 12pp, Digital print on Munken. Stitched in blue. Embossed letterpress card cover. Edition 40. Price £60.

Flourish is a calligraphic exploration of the water’s edge. The movement of rushes twist and loop in dance, engaging with their shadows and the ripple reflection of the river. Tadpoles intermingle as wriggling accents and minnows flourish: darting to and fro within the flow of the river across the landscape open spread.

Helen Douglas, Turn, Weproductions, 2019. 16x23cm, 16pp, Digital print on Munken. Stitched. Embossed letterpress card cover. Edition 60. Price £20.

Dated September 1st Turn marks that moment of turn from Summer to Autumn. Grasses turn from green to gold their leaves curling and turning in gracious exuberance from slender stalks. In the book each grass is paired with another; like courtly couples they seem to bow and reel in dance within the open page spread. The stitched thread joins the dance.