Book 30 Transgressing the Page
Penn, C. (2009) (Fig. 28) Unique Artist’s Book. Single Pamphlet Stitch Binding, Soft spine which also acts as Cover. Re-worked images, text, various book/document/journal/magazine pages, dress patterns, thread.  396 pages.  15cm x 90cm.  Book 30. Collection: Cheryl Penn.
Transgressions and Boundaries of the Page is the title of a “creative project and transdisciplinary investigation into the artist’s book and practice-based research…[which] entails the involvement  of approximately forty artists in creating artists’ books” (Marley, 2009).  I unfortunately only heard of this project after registration date, but thought the concept of ‘transgressing the page’ an interesting one. I tore in half pages from various sources such as medical journals, art books, legal documents, technical books, magazines and my own work.  This constituted a physical transgressing of the page. 

These half pages were then covered with torn dress making patterns. Dress  making patterns are intended to give a template for  making things.  By  transgressing these as  well, and then using them outside their normal context, another type of ‘page’ was transgressed.  The binding is interactive as when the open book is to be closed, it is turned inside out with the  spine also acting as the cover.  This is another sort of transgression; that of  the spine and the cover, which in traditional books normally have a particular function which is not interchangeable.
Round books are also unusual in South African art practice.  Paton wrote (2000) that “unusually shaped Artists’ Books are rare in South Africa and it is  interesting to note that a square book … is as rare as a circle shaped book of which I have  found   no major South Africa example”.  However this  may  have changed in the nine years following the publication of Paton’s dissertation.