Artist Books: When the Book Becomes the Art

What makes a book a book?

A cover? Pages? Words arranged in order from beginning to end?

Artist books invite us to loosen that definition.

Simply put, an artist book is a book created as a work of art. Rather than being only a container for words, photographs, or information, the book itself becomes part of the creative expression.

The structure matters. The materials matter. The way the pages unfold, the stitching, the images and words, the hidden pockets, unexpected openings, found objects — even the way someone holds and explores the book — can all become part of the artwork.

And that opens up a lot of creative possibilities.

There Are No Rules for What a Book Has to Look Like

Many of us grew up with a pretty specific idea of a book: covers, a spine, pages, and a clear beginning and end.

An artist book might have all of those things.

Or it might live inside an old cigar box. Curl into a tea tin. Unfold from a vintage record sleeve. Take the shape of a pencil, an oyster shell, or even an old shoe.

That freedom was on full display when our Handmade Book Club members explored artist books as their June project.

We offered “Beverages” as a loose jumping-off point, but the real invitation was broader: choose an idea and see what happens when the content, materials, and book structure all begin talking to one another.

The beverage theme was never meant to be a box. It was simply a place to begin. And some of the most interesting results came when members followed an unexpected idea somewhere else entirely.

One Prompt. Many Very Different Books.

Some members ran with the beverage theme. But even within that one idea, no two books looked remotely alike.

Sandy DeWald took the anatomy of a cocktail and turned it into an interactive book. A cocktail has eight components, so she created a page for each one, complete with a rotating volvelle offering eight possible ingredients. Turn the wheels, choose an ingredient from each category, and suddenly the book can invent a cocktail of its own.

Even the binding joins the theme: Sandy used colorful swizzle sticks for the piano hinge, paired with retro Pepin papers and cardstock wheels.

That’s one of the delights of an artist book: the structure isn’t simply holding the artwork together. It becomes part of the idea.

Denise Fairbank approached the beverage prompt in an entirely different way with Coffee Swirls, a tunnel book that pulls the viewer inward through layer after layer of circular, coffee-colored forms. Rather than simply illustrating coffee, the structure creates the sensation of looking down into a swirling cup.

Sheryl Hess created a circular book designed to fit inside a tea container. Maps, tea wrappers, photographs, and packaging become its pages, while beads separate the layers and give the book dimension. Here, the container, the materials, and the subject all belong to the same little world.

And Buffy Greer turned the beverage prompt into an entire miniature world. Her vintage-inspired vending machine dispenses something a little more interesting than soda: bottles of Clarity, Joy, Courage, Motivation, and other things we could probably all use a sip of now and then.

The dimensional details — right down to the coin slot and tiny mouse tucked inside — make the piece feel less like a traditional book and more like an object you want to explore. It’s a great example of how an artist book can use humor, storytelling, and surprise to pull the viewer in.

📺 Take a closer look at Buffy’s book in action.

Sometimes the Materials Tell You What the Book Wants to Be

One of the most interesting ways to begin an artist book is not with a book structure at all, but with an object.

A vintage box. An old record. A discarded board book. A shell. A shoe.

Instead of asking, What kind of book should I make?, you can ask:

What could this object become?

Diane Taylor started with a vintage wooden pencil box and a recycled children’s board book. She transformed the pages with paint, collage, vintage prints, stencils, tissue transfers, rubber stamping, and more, then brought everything together with a single-sheet Coptic binding. Even the pencil-shaped form becomes part of the finished story.

Donna Roy let a vintage 45 rpm record inspire her book, using a double-jacket copy of Gershwin’s An American in Paris along with red, white, blue, star-patterned papers and sheet music. The original object isn’t hidden or disguised — its history is part of the artwork.

And Dianne Hicks went even farther outside the traditional book form, incorporating an old shoe, Bristol paper, and painted Kraft-Tex strips for the binding.

It’s playful, sculptural, and a perfect reminder that an artist book doesn’t necessarily have to resemble a book sitting on a library shelf.

A Book Can Be a Collection

Artist books are also wonderful containers for the things we gather, physically or otherwise.

Bits picked up on walks. Photographs. Memories. Maps. Fragments of handwriting. Objects that might seem insignificant on their own but begin to tell a larger story when they’re brought together.

Cathie M. created an entire collection of tiny books and objects housed inside a vintage cigar box, each one connected to walking and noticing the landscape around her.

There’s a lotus book for bluebell woods, a long-stitch binding for found feathers, recycled bobbins holding hedgerow flowers, a driftwood scroll for the sea, a cotton-reel slow-stitch book, and even an accordion book for the colophon.

Together they feel almost like a cabinet of curiosities… a record not just of places, but of the small details noticed along the way.

Romana Sanchez also used a collection as her starting point, creating The Doors of Home: New Mexico. Her accordion book of New Mexico doors lives inside a tin complete with its own tiny doorknob. Collage, paint, pencil, marker, and paper bits turn a familiar architectural detail into a visual record of place.

These books show how an artist book can become a way of collecting and preserving an experience, rather than simply documenting it.

The Shape of the Book Can Carry the Idea

Sometimes the structure itself becomes the first thing you notice.

Joyce Lyster tucked her tiny painted pages inside an oyster shell, allowing the natural object to become both cover and container. The scale alone changes the experience — you have to come closer and look carefully.

Betsy Wilson created a circular book filled with intricate drawings and patterns. Using Stonehenge Steele Grey covers, Bristol vellum pages, and grey Kraft-Tex for a reverse piano-hinge binding, she filled the circular pages with intricate layers of pen, pencil, graphite, chalk, and color.

Seen closed, open, stacked, and spread out, the book changes constantly. The viewer never encounters it from only one angle.

That interaction is a big part of what makes artist books so interesting. The viewer doesn’t simply look at the work… they often have to handle it, turn it, open it, unfold it, or move around it to experience the whole thing.

Artist Books Can Tell Difficult Stories, Too

Not every artist book is playful.

Because the form invites us to combine image, object, text, sequence, and touch, it can also be an incredibly powerful way to approach memory, history, loss, or difficult subjects.

Diana Mahar’s In War, No One Is Unwounded uses the form of a cassette tape as the foundation for a haunting book object. Historic imagery, distressed surfaces, and a woven spine transform a familiar object into something entirely different. The materials themselves contribute to the mood before the viewer has even begun to examine the individual images.

That ability to make us feel something before we fully understand what we’re seeing is one of the things that can make artist books so powerful.

📺 See Diana’s book in action.

Humor, Storytelling, and a Little Bit of Mischief

Artist books can also be funny.

Patricia Daloni began with a collection of vintage mug shots and immediately knew she had found the characters for her book.

Her imagined premise? These unfortunate souls may have visited a few too many speakeasies in their day.

She created a grungy hard-cover piano-hinge album featuring eight individuals, incorporating weaving and beads along with vintage-style imagery and liquor labels. The result feels somewhere between an old police file, a scrapbook, and a fictional history.

That’s another possibility an artist book offers: you can invent the story.

A found photograph doesn’t have to remain simply a found photograph. It can become a character. An old label can become evidence. A bit of ephemera can become the beginning of an entire imaginary world.

The Book Can Become a Memory

Artist books don’t always begin with an elaborate concept. Sometimes they begin with something much simpler: nostalgia.

A place you remember. A song. A familiar object. A moment you don’t want to lose.

Maureen Leslie took that idea quite literally, creating a tiny piano-shaped book to accompany a miniature wooden piano. Sheet music, piano keys, and the word Nostalgia immediately connect the form of the book with the memories and associations it holds.

It’s a lovely example of something artist books do especially well: the shape of the book can tell us something before we’ve read a single page.

Whether it’s Maureen’s piano, Donna’s vintage Gershwin record, Romana’s New Mexico doors, or Cathie’s walking treasures, these books demonstrate how form can make a memory feel tangible.

Instead of simply writing about a memory, you can give it a shape.

You can hold it. Open it. Unfold it. Discover it a little at a time.

Where Could an Artist Book Take You?

After seeing books made from record covers, cigar boxes, shoes, shells, tea tins, pencil boxes, and all sorts of unexpected materials, it would be easy to think an artist book has to begin with a big, clever idea.

It doesn’t.

It might begin with a photograph you keep returning to. Something you picked up on a walk. An old object tucked away in a drawer. A favorite song. A memory. A color. A scrap of paper you can’t quite bring yourself to throw away.

That’s part of what makes artist books so much fun: you don’t necessarily know where you’re going when you begin.

Bookbinding gives us the techniques — folding, stitching, constructing, binding — but an artist book invites us to play with what those techniques can become.

The binding might echo the subject. A container can become part of the story. Pages can fold, turn, spin, hide, reveal, or take on an entirely unexpected shape.

So instead of asking only, How do I make this book?, try asking:

What does this idea want the book to become?

Then follow your curiosity and see where it takes you.

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🎨 Inside Handmade Book Club, we explore a new book structure every month — along with plenty of inspiration for making it your own. If you’d like to keep experimenting, learning, and seeing where your own ideas can take you, we’d love to have you join us.

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