Hand scrolls + hand-made books in the ancient Chinese tradition. New York City, 2013

From Daudy’s Library of Hand-Made Books. New York City 2013

These early works are still deeply influenced by Daudy’s Chinese studies with the Chinese inscriptions and signatures littered across the drawings, and the start of her KD signature. You can see examples of the artists inspiration beneath Chinese painter Han Fan’s Tang Dynasty masterpiece Night Shining White.

Since early childhood Daudy writes letters and makes books using her own hand ground ink and hand made paper she makes at the Moulin Richard de Bas in Auvergne, a 13th century paper mill beloved of Picasso, Cezanne and others, and from which for example the paper for the Nobel Prize awards are made.

Bound together with felt (which represents the idea of redemption to the artist) these books are in the collections of prominent book collectors all over the world.

Even once the artist was offered a residency at the house of a Canadian art collector who amongst other things collects blank ancient vellums and papers. She was offered to use any paper she might like from the collection while she did the residency with the collector getting First Dibs on the works she made with his paper.

She did not go as her three children were small at the same time and she did not want to leave them for long periods of time, but the love of unusual papers remains a keystone of her work and she uses her own handmade paper, papers from Japan, Switzerland, the Lake District’s Paper Foundation and other beautiful and unusual papers in her work.

Han Fan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art