Before I get started, just a quick plug about The Wish, my next installation project. I’m collecting wishes, and it is free and easy to share a wish! Click here to read more information about the project and to leave your wish!

Last night I did my first local book event, a Local Author Showcase at The Bookworm of Edwards, a fantastic small town bookstore, which to my delight, had two of my older books in stock the first time I visited! Thanks to everyone who came out to say hello and purchase a book!

I had two minutes to introduce myself, and the prompt from the bookstore publicity manager was this: “Since this is a showcase atmosphere, I typically don’t encourage authors to speak or read but you are a unique group so I would like to try it this year”. Well, I never imagined reading from my book, Playing With Paper, but I looked at my introduction and decided there were some words there worth speaking out loud. (Truth be told, we never did our 2 minute speeches, so I’ll type mine to you here).

My book is not literature, but an appreciation for paper as an art form. It is filled with projects and ideas for using paper as a medium for arts and crafts. On a trip to Japan in the late 1980’s, I fell in love with the way the light filtered through traditional paper shoji screen walls in the inn where I was staying.

Today, I have a fully equipped hand papermaking studio located in Red Cliff, where I produce artists’ books and installations, write a blog, teach workshops and train interns. I travel and teach, sharing what I know about paper and telling people about the many amazing artists whose work I’ve had the opportunity to view and read about.I frequently encounter artists from all walks of life who are transforming paper in amazing ways. Many of them contributed projects and images that fill the pages of this book. Their work showcases the variety of ways that you can work with paper, including pop-ups, model making, paper cutting, books arts, quilling, origami, folding and pleating, and there are even a few projects which involve flying paper.

My hope is that my readers will be inspired by the potential of paper as an art form. And if you dear readers need a little help, I’m launching a new type of workshop called the Playing With Paper Party. You gather a group of friends or colleagues and bring me in as entertainment, and you and your friends get to make one of the projects in the book.

Leading up to this event, I was invited to be on our local TV news show last Friday. Here’s the clip, and in case it isn’t embedded on your screen, click here to watch it.
 

The versatility of paper rivals that of any medium; it can be torn into pieces or burned with a match, yet it has the integrity to grace graphic design, fashion, and even architecture. Even though I no longer needed a sheet of paper to write the manuscript for this book because technology has usurped much of our need for it, I trust that artists will continue to create with it and collectors will continue to appreciate its beauty, that same beauty I saw as the light filtered through the ancient shoji screen panels in Japan.

Three kids from The Paper Club that I teach at Homestake Peak School (plus a friend) made window stars, a project featured in the book.