The Sunday Paper #482

October 15, 2023

I find it so hard to make sense of the world in times like this, but I do find solace listening to podcasts like On Being with Krista Tippett. She recently interviewed Baratunde Thurston, who she calls a social creative (I love that term). He looks for learning, even amidst our hardest cultural tangles, and he intertwines all of this, innovatively and searchingly, with his lifelong joy in the natural world.

Sending big love to each and every one of you, today and everyday. In my distracted and busy week, I completely forgot about the solar eclipse. I happened to take my dogs for a short walk just as people in the neighborhood were stepping out of their homes to view it. I didn’t have any special glasses though. Did you see it?

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Susan Ruptash has taken several of my online courses and is a member of The Paper Year. She has an exhibition called Congruence, at the Propeller Gallery in Toronto, opening in a couple of weeks. Go see it if you are in the area (or take a look at her work online). She creates wonders with heritage washi.

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Good handmade watercolor paper is a specialty of only a few mills worldwide. Here’s one in China. I’m curious – the photos look like they are using Western papermaking equipment. The Baoding Huarong Paper Factory‘s papers are available in 40 countries, and they have a museum too.

Staff members making paper for painting and calligraphy at the Baoding Huarong Paper Factory, Hebei province in China. PHOTO: CHINA DAILY

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There are so many ways to weave paper! Look at how Sia Hurtigkari is exploring explore scale, color, and finish.

As seen on designboom. the designer during the construction process, image by Benjamin Lund

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Designers in Japan are using a technique called sunago-maki, where an artist places flakes of gold or silver leaf into a bamboo tube and then sprinkles them onto paper, to create light-powered Eco-Drive watch faces.

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Paper Tidbits

• I’ll be teaching a Woven Book Cover project to Heather Martinez’s Let’s Letter Together group this Tuesday (October 17th). You can join us for a small fee.
• Will I see any of you this week at the North American Hand Papermaker’s Paper Tides conference (10-19/21)? I’m looking forward to a little trip, and to visiting Providence, RI for the first time.
• I’m part of the holiday workshop line-up with MadeTV. I’ll be teaching how to make a woven winter solstice lantern on 12/21 (the winter solstice). You have to be subscriber to access the workshops. Maybe some of you already are?