Art, calligraphy and poetry bound together to revel in some of the many Arabic words that express love in all its hues.
The art and calligraphy are my own; the Sufi poems were selected to amplify the words, and also confer a double meaning on the book: human lover or divine Beloved?
The book is designed to speak to the senses and emotions, its enjoyment not to be bogged down in definitions: therefore, the translations are tucked away in a folded insert, along with some of my sketches for the designs.
The body of the concertina is printed with archival, pigment-based giclée on beautifully tactile Hahnemule etching paper, which I cut, fold and assemble by hand. The covers are painted in watercolour, blind-embossed using a wonderful old-fashioned press, and finished with gold metal leaf. (The cover design, a golden seed inside a heart, is a reference to the seminal Arabic word for “love”, hubb, which also means “seed”).
The closed book measures 11.5×11.5cm, and it unfolds to an amazing 356.5 cm in a single length of paper. Each copy is signed and numbered out of a total edition of 50.
