Making Shoji Paper

Making Shoji Paper

The Sunday Paper #283
October 27, 2019

Paper of the Week: The Paper Year

I asked a friend to test out The Paper Year, and her grandaughter made this sketch – you can tell what was on her mind. Happy Halloween! What are you up to? We live in an upstairs condo and don’t get many trick-or-treaters, but our neighborhood is full of kids. Lots of people go over the top with their decorations, and people who live at street level say they hand out 3000 pieces of candy (one per kid)!

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In the Studio:


Remember my Word Broadsides? Mary Tasillo recently curated an exhibition in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania (it closes today). Word Made Manifest: Text in Handmade Paper can be viewed online at this link (you’ll also find the digital brochure, which features one of my broadsides as the background). And I know you’re wondering about those light frames. Mary purchased those from Photo Glow. I’m going to order a set of them!

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Papery Tidbits:

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Here’s a fun crafty alternative for those 14 and up in Chicago. Join my friend Shawn Sheehy on Halloween and make a trio of pop-up Halloween cards (including this skull lantern) at the Harold Washington Library Center. Get ready to send spine-chilling Halloween greetings!

Drew Matott travels around the world with Peace Paper, helping people from all walks of life create paper in a transformational way. Here’s a video that gives you a glimpse into his process. And you can hear my conversation with Drew was on Paper Talk, which was recorded a few months ago.

This 10 minute video shows the entire Japanese papermaking process of making shoji paper. Wowza!

Check out what the artist Mark Bradford is doing with the proceeds from his work – it’s a new form of philanthropy. His works, if you aren’t familiar with them, involve paper.

Bradford’s “Frostbite.” (Photo: Joshua White./Copyright Mark Bradford. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.)


Are you in the Mendocino area? Join the Rhinoceros Project for the debut exhibition of a monumental embroidery and watermark in handmade paper on November 9th. The Rhinoceros Project traveled for three years, offering public sewing circles to make this life-size embroidery of Durer’s print. 600 people embroidered this watermark, which served as the matrix for a watermark in handmade paper.

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Featured this week in my Studio shop:
This pop-up groundhog, designed by Marianne Petit, is featured in the 2020 Paper Year, The Papermaker’s Companion, Mend, and Water Paper Time.

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