I would like to share my first blog post since June 2023. If you followed my monthly updates in the past, I apologize for the silence. The past two and a half years have been challenging, and reaching out wasn’t my priority. Despite my grief, I kept creating because art has always been my life's compass, and I needed to hold onto something tangible.

During this time, I completed my artist book Pistolero, which I mentioned in my 2023 posts, and published two more: Paradigm Shift and Owning My Process. I began working on Owning My Process at the end of 2022 with help from the late Cherry Jeffs and discussions with Amandine Nabarra. I plan to share them on my website soon.

While editing the text for Owning My Process, I found myself explaining and defending the term “artists’ books” over and over. After research and reflection on the art genre, I decided to remain consistent with the movement’s spelling, writing “artists’ book(s)” with an apostrophe at the end and ignoring AI suggestions that it was a spelling error.

The debate over the apostrophe has persisted since the 1960s, reflecting the medium's resistance to traditional definitions. This controversy emerged as a shift from luxurious livres d'artistes to affordable, mass-produced books.

Artists like Ed Ruscha (Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963) and Dieter Roth (Daily Mirror Book, 1961) pioneered the new art form using the book format, raising questions about terminology and spelling. The debate on the spelling centered on whether to use 'artists' books' (plural possessive), the singular “Artist’s book,” or "artist book” without an apostrophe, with "artist” as an adjective.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, as institutions began collecting these works — such as an exhibition at Moore College of Art in 1973 — “artists’ books” became the term for this genre, even as debates continued.

In Stefan Klima’s 1998 survey, "Artists' Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature," he noted that inconsistent spelling reflects both the medium's ambiguity and its artistic potential. Some, like Clive Phillpot, distinguished “artists’ books” from “bookworks,” emphasizing the conceptual nature over craft.

Most collections recognize the importance of a policy requiring staff to use the apostrophe consistently. Those who have acquired my books spell it with an apostrophe at the end, supporting the genre’s recognition.

I have always used the term “artists’ books” and will continue to use it to acknowledge my work in this genre. Though after my research, I am considering dropping the apostrophe in favor of “artist book” or “bookwork” when referring to individual works. It’s not a typo; it's my policy.