Diary Drawings

Bobby Baker is, in her own words, 'a woman and an artist', but in 1996, she was diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder. For the next 11 years, while creating internationally acclaimed performance pieces such as 'Box Story' and 'How to Live', she struggled to overcome severe mental and later physical illness – unknown to anyone outside her close family, friends and colleagues.

The 158 drawings and watercolours in this book tell her story. Selected by Bobby from the hundreds more she created daily as a private way to come to terms with her experience, they are an astonishing record of her slow and harrowing journey to recovery. By turns moving, startling, shocking and hilarious, they reveal the stark realities of living with mental illness and of society's lack of understanding.

With an introductory essay by Marina Warner, and essays by Bobby and by her daughter Dora Whittuck (a qualified clinical psychologist), this book is a rich and rewarding visual experience and fascinating insight into the interplay between art, mental health and society.