Fashioning by Denise Bookwalter

Fashioning is the second book collaboration between Denise Bookwalter and Lee Emma Running. Their first artist book, Lining, investigates the intimate relationship of textiles next to the skin. In Fashioning the artists continue their work with their intimate relationship with clothing. Clothing retains the story of the wearer. In Fashioning the artists capture their relationship with clothing by making rubbings of embellishments found on personally significant garments. The drawings directly capture a moment in the life of the textile. The textile contains its own evidence of the hands that made it and the bodies that wore it. Each of the rubbings were transferred to letterpress printing plates, printed in white, resit dyed, and waxed to create a book structure that becomes a book the reader wears. Fashioning is a tactile experience embedded in cloth and paper.