Artist's Books
An artist’s book is an artwork in the form of a book, where the author uses the possibilities of the book as a medium — its material, form, and structure — as creative tools. It focuses on the relationship between form and content, offering an experience that engages both the eye and the hand. An artist’s book can be a traditional binding, a folded book, a leporello, or a completely experimental object. By using different materials, techniques, lettering styles, and compositional approaches, I have endless opportunities to create a small, self-contained world within each book. These worlds reflect experiences, emotions, and contemplations, weaving the personal and the universal into a visual narrative that the viewer can step into for a moment. I enjoy every stage of the bookmaking process — from searching for suitable texts to documenting the finished work.
Timeless Roman
Boxed book with Roman Capital developments
Broad-edged and pointed nibs, acrylic ink, watercolours
Out of the Home Forest
My soles know this narrow path,
here in Dark Forest old familiar things await —
tough blueberry stems, grey beards of moss,
cones crunching underfoot and stumps crowned with fungi like the heels of loaf.
I walk slowly.
The forest’s sounds and scents, its breath and peace,
quietly seep into me, and I feel — I am home.
Along that old track, in summers, I threaded berries onto a straw of grass,
a little farther on we gathered milkcaps with grandma,
and searched for the golden chanterelles with father.
And yet, now there is much that wasn’t there before —
the forest lives and ages and changes.
Bark beetles gnaw at the spruces, windfall blocks the way
and the tall anthills have vanished somewhere…
This small experimental book was found in a home forest in Southern Estonia. The covers are crafted from the fruiting bodies of the Fomitopsis pinicola, to which 40 coffee-stained, deckle-edged pages have been individually bound. On the pages, one can see lichen patterns transferred through gel printing, as well as graphics made from blueberry stems and pine needles. Among the uncial-script texts are occasional photographs from that same forest.
Of the Sea...
Broad-edged and pointed nibs, folded pen, brushes, acrylic inks, watercolours
Book of spring
Eclectic book in Coptic stitch
Pointed nib, folded pen, metallic marker, acrylic inks, watercolours
Crossroads
Crossroads afoot
to sing the blues you must
sell your dear soul
Jürgen Rooste / Adam Cullen
This time, I sought inspiration for the book’s structure from the form of haiku. The core of the book is divided into three sections, each representing one line of a haiku. Every page executed in the paper-cut technique represents a single syllable of that line (the Estonian haiku form invented by Asko Künnap, used here, follows a 4–6–4 structure, which made it possible to use double-page spreads and a Coptic binding).
Sometimes it is fascinating how certain things or ideas unexpectedly converge — that is exactly what happened when I stumbled upon this haiku and immediately recognized the reference to the legend of the blues guitarist Robert Johnson. And since I had been enjoying a musical piece based on that very story over the past couple of weeks, I chose the tones of the paper according to the color palette of the song’s music video…
treasured time
Eclectic book in Japanese binding
Mixed media
Red and black
Japanese binding
Mixed media (monotype printing, painting, calligraphy and collage)
Little brown Moments
Coptic stitch
Acrylic inks, metallic aquarelle, different papers
Cool Blue
Sometimes I listen to Riho. I enjoy, reflect, and let myself be inspired. This time was no different.
The idea for creating this calligraphic booklet emerged in the autumn of 2023 while listening to this roughly 20-year-old album by Riho Sibul and looking at the timelessly beautiful design of its cover. The book’s central theme is to write excerpts from the song lyrics on the album in scripts from different historical periods learned in calligraphy school – from Roman capital letters all the way to contemporary scripts.
The book is designed in a format borrowed from the CD cover and bound in Japanese binding. And just as Riho Sibul sang in Estonian, with an Estonian heart, the book is carried by a quiet patriotism — blue washes of watercolour and acrylics, the depth of black ink, and the clarity of white paper.
