Fibers of Becoming

Fibers of Becoming

The Sunday Paper #564

July 20, 2025

By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be in Northern New Mexico, setting up for the first annual Taos Paper Retreat. Attendees are arriving this afternoon. I’m so excited to be in the Land of Enchantment, a place that has captivated me since childhood. My family lived in Los Alamos off and on due to my father’s research. My godmother, Carolyn Lake (who my parents met in Texas, where we lived the rest of the time) ended up in Taos, and then Santa Fe. She creates these gorgeous cards from with her original photographs and sells them through the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, where the retreat is being held (as well as at other venues around the state). Small world! I’m looking forward to having dinner with her one evening in Taos. As a child, I was enchanted by the farolitos, or luminaria – paper bags weighted with sand and illuminated by candles – and they certainly inspired my interest in paper and light.  


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Opening July 29th in Ohio: Fibers of Becoming: Contemporary Paper Works by Sarah Brayer, Aimee Lee, and Lin Yan opens July 29, 2025 at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College (through May 24, 2026). “At the intersection of tradition and innovation, Sarah Brayer, Aimee Lee, and Lin Yan transform handmade paper into powerful expressions of cultural memory and contemporary identity. Each artist works within distinct East Asian papermaking traditions—Brayer with Japanese washi, Lee with Korean hanji, and Lin with Chinese Xuanzhi—yet all three engage in a meditative dialogue between ancient craft and modern vision.”

Aimee Lee (American), Multi, 2023. Ink, printed beaten and laced mulberry paper bark, and natural dye on hanji, thread. ©Aimee Lee

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I had the pleasure of speaking with Galen Gibson-Cornell on Paper Talk.  He was born and raised in Maryville, Missouri and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from Truman State University in 2009, (which included a 2007 study-abroad in Angers, France). He completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin in 2013 and then set off on a year-long Fulbright fellowship to Budapest, Hungary. In the following years, Gibson-Cornell traveled to multiple international artist-residency programs, developing a creative practice based on urban exploration and repurposing found materials. His studio has been based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 2017. Enjoy our conversation!

Galen Gibson-Cornell in his studio in the Globe Dye Works building in Philadelphia.

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Did anyone see this installation by Ana Oosting? Breaking Waves was at the museum Beelden aan Zee in The Netherlands recently. The artist studied how waves break and then captured the expansion and contraction in paper using folded tessellations. Wowza!

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A note of passing: Patricia Grass, who ran Green Heron Book Arts in Forest Grove, Oregon, passed away on July 10, 2025 (read the announcement). She ran Green Heron Book Arts, a store and learning center that preserves and explores the art of handmade books, printmaking, papermaking and other paper arts. Patty welcomed me to the Oregon book and paper arts community when I moved there in 1998. Rest in Peace, dear Patty.

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Paper Tidbits

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1 Comment

  1. Patricia Cheyne says:
    July 20, 2025 at 3:43 pm

    Hi Helen
    So sorry to hear about Patty — she was such a wonderful mentor to so many of us.
    Toas. Sounds exciting! All the best
    Patricia Cheyne