The Sunday Paper #148, March 5, 2017

Paper of the Week: The 50 Card Project

Keep America Beautiful / Week Five: Scott Pruitt is confirmed as the next head of the EPA.

Melanie Mowinski made a card of FDR’s Four Freedoms on Inauguration Day. By the end of the three-color limited edition of 100 cards she decided that she needed to make a card every week for this entire year. These cards respond to what is happening in our country at the moment and how she can frame the situation to keep her and others energized. They also serve as a reminder about what is important and at stake in our country.

Each week from Inauguration Day to the end of 2017 Melanie is printing a new letterpress card in a limited edition of 100, using vintage letterpress type, cuts and other printing matrices–sending some to key players in Washington, DC (including President Trump, VP Pence, and many of his cabinet members). By the end of the project she will have made 50 different cards or 5000 individual cards. These cards are about being positive, yet also a little subversive. For example, in week seven the V in the word LOVE is purple as a shout out to ideas of unity, anti-bullying in the LGBTQ communities, and the suffragette colors. While her politics will likely be clear, she is also working to create cards that are not divisive!

Melanie is currently running a kickstarter campaign. Consider purchasing one or all 50 of the cards and support her work!

———————————————————————————————–––––––––

In the Studio:
It’s been a busy week in the studio! One of the most fun parts of it was beginning to design the projects for the next Twelve Months of Paper Calendar! Next I get to pick the papers that I’ll use to make all of the projects. That’s always a fun (yet arduous) task. It’s a bit overwhelming to look through all of my swatch books and figure out what colors/textures and paper traits will suit each project.

Star Lantern model (one sheet of paper!) + a list & sketches of 12 projects that will come to life!

• Registration for Focus on Book Arts, which takes place at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon opens tomorrow! I’ll be teaching a 2-day workshops called Flexible Book Structures (see page 34 at the link). I hope you’ll consider joining me, and you might be interested in some of the other workshops as well! I’ve been to FOBA several times, and it is really fun (books and paper summer camp)!
• There are just a few spots left in the Red Cliff Paper Retreat that takes place in my Colorado studio Sept 8-10 and/or Sept 12-14)———————————————————————————————––––––––

For those of you who have this year’s 12 Months of Paper Calendar, have you made the March project yet? It’s a pleated lantern made from a single sheet of paper, with bamboo skewers slipped into stitched sleeves on the corners that make it more sturdy.

Peter Thomas is a hand papermaker, book artist and musician. Check out his new CD featuring book arts folk songs! The CD jacket is letterpress printed on handmade paper, of course.

I had the opportunity to meet Becca Zerkin at a Movable Book Society conference a couple of years ago. She spoke about her work with school children and paper engineering, but she also creates amazing pop-up books of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, to name a few!

This infographic by Eleanor Lutz appears in Wired magazine this month. Lutz created 3D illustrations using watercolor paper and Elmers glue and then lit them on fire to show species that have unique adaptations to withstand fire. Be sure to scroll down at the link to watch these animated burning paper sculptures!

This is cool (or maybe hot). Apparently, one of the byproducts of papermaking (lignen) can be used to make a stronger sunscreen.
———————————————————————————————––––––––
About our Sponsor: Melanie Mowinski founded PRESS: Letterpress as a Public Art Project, a hybrid gallery, teaching, and studio space centered around an operating Vandercook Universal III in 2011. PRESS anchored Main Street, North Adams for five years, and served as a downtown hub for students from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where Mowinski is an associate professor. Follow Melanie’s blog as she documents the 50 Card Project. 
———————————————————————————————–––––––––