Beyond the Page - Beginnings

 Why choose Lighthousekeeping Jeanette Winterson as a book to respond to?

“Lighthousekeeping is a sea story, a love story, a lost story, a life story, a bedtime story and my story... It is a story about telling stories.    Jeanette Winterson 

With it’s beautiful crafted descriptions, we felt Jeanette Winterson’s book Lighthousekeeping lends itself to visual interpretation.. The book resonates with so many aspects of our own lives. With its array of possible starting points, each of us of have responded to a sentence,  an image, or thread, using it as inspiration for a ‘new story’ in the form of an artist book.

“And it was discovered that every light had a story - no everylight was a story and the flashes themselves were the stories going out over the waves as markers, guides and comfort and warning” 

Stories are what make our lives - the way we make sense of experience and the world around us. Like the child’s game of Chinese whispers, subtle shifts in each retelling gives space for new interpretations to emerge. Viewing this collection of work is akin to the flashes from the lighthouse moving out from a central point, dispersing and creating a continuous cycle of new stories, new beginnings. 

 A preliminary 'mock up' from Chris Ruston as she experiments with various book structures as part of her response to Lighthoousekeeping.