The Sunday Paper #505

April 21, 2024

I truly enjoy having a busy life, but over the next 2 months though, I have a lot going on. When I start to get overwhelmed, it helps to notice that I’m making progress. Here are three things I accomplished this week: I put together some samples for my fall workshop in Tasmania; I worked out on the projects I will feature in the third quarter of The Paper Year (hold your spot if you’d like to join us); and I got the entire manuscript for my next book, A Paper Weaving Journey, into one document.

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I had the pleasure of interviewing Beth Kephart on Paper Talk. Kephart is a National Book Award finalist, the award-winning author of some 40 books in multiple genres, an award-winning teacher of memoir, a widely published essayist, and a women who loves paper. Her new book is My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera (Temple University Press). We had a delightful conversation about the book, which began with letter writing to the late Dard Hunter. Enjoy!

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This article is from 2020, but how fascinating! Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran provides an overview of some of her work for the Paper people – making clothing from paper in Japan project. There are very few communities continuing to make paper clothing or textiles throughout Japan – in Shiroishi, there are only four people who make the specially treated paper or the clothing itself, as there is no consumer demand. It is used in one annual Buddhist ceremony near Kyoto.

Mashiko Endō talking about a garment she constructed. Endō and her late husband Tadao were Shiroishi’s most prominent papermakers, until he passed away in the 1990s and she retired in 2017 at 93 years of age. She took no apprentice but generously shares her knowledge (Photo: Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran)

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Mindell Dubansky heads the Sherman Fairchild Center for Book Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it is a delight to visit her in the basement of the museum. This is a great NY Times article (with moving images) titled: Quick! Someone Get This Book a Doctor: Inside the book conservation lab at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I love Dubansky’s quote: “We have a lot of violent equipment.”

The office guillotine comes in handy not for beheading colleagues but for slicing large stacks of paper. “It makes a terrifying noise,” said Andrijana Sajic, an assistant librarian for book conservation.

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Shivali Johri Srivastava, along with her mother Kavita Johri Srivastava and father Anil Srivastava, alumni of GITAM Deemed-to-be University, Hyderabad (2016-20), have jointly secured their 15^th Guinness World Record for the largest display of 3,200 origami pigs/boars. This record also marks the highest number of records held by one family in Hyderabad, with a total of 15.

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Paper Tidbits

• Rebloom, a paper art biennial of The International Association of Papermakers & Paper Artists, (IAPMA) opens today in Hagen im Bremischen, Germany.
• Nominations for the Hall of Papermaking Champions are now being accepted through 11:59pm EDT on July 15, 2024. NAHP established these awards in 2020 to honor those whose contributions during their careers have significantly inspired or changed the course of papermaking. Paper artists, traditional papermakers, paper historians, toolmakers, scientists, conservators, and others are all eligible for nomination. Click here for more details and to submit a nomination.

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Let’s honor our earth tomorrow. Years ago, I made this artist’s book, Handle With Care, with a phrase running around the equator that says: “You are holding the world in your hands”.