My auto-ethnographic, in-practice creative thesis Leaf Love, explores the parameters of what it is to be encased in ‘experienced’ female skin. I draw upon the techniques of lived-experience as a literary publisher and fine press printer to create unconventional book objects representing the body ego. In reflexive dialogue with the structures that emerge, this research aims to disrupt values and standards inherent in book culture and in the perceptions of the body as we know and understand them.

The title Leaf Love, reflects back to our roots in nature to clear space for new beginnings. Leaf Love is a material inquiry into obscurity, transparency, intimacy, and the visceral nature of the body through process, and shares the affect born in repetition and endurance. By addressing ways of intervening on text, creating references to skin in my book objects, pushing the parameters of books, I present my research outcomes with the purpose of stimulating active reconsideration of hegemonic constructs of love and loss.

Keywords: disruption, material research, auto-ethnography, skin, abject, stitchery, literary letterpress, in-practice research, Claudia Benthien, Elizabeth Grosz, Astride Lorange, Gertrude Stein, feminism, sculpture, multidisciplinary, books and media, paper, art of the book, artists’ books