The Sunday Paper #476

September 3, 2023

This is related to paper, tangentially. I swim 3x a week with a master’s group led by Josiah Middaugh, a former Xterra world champion and a professional athlete. Josiah broke his foot recently, so he didn’t compete in last weekend’s event in Beaver Creek, but here you see his 19 year old son Sullivan, taking first place (he placed first last year too, just ahead of his father). I swim with some elite athletes (mind you, I only swim, and I am nowhere near elite) and decided to head to the finish line to watch the first racers arrive. I did two triathlons when they were just beginning back in the late 80’s, but I didn’t enjoy the biking and running nearly as much as the swimming. Here’s the paper connection: when Sully was in 3rd grade, he attended the Paper Club that I ran at my kids’ school when we first moved to Colorado. Happy Labor Day to those of you in the US! Sullivan worked hard for this. He’s now in college and competing as a pro.

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I listed this opportunity awhile back, and now the awards have been announced! Congratulations to Kamari Bright, Julie Chen, Betty Pasco and Julie Paschkis for winning the inaugural Bainbridge Island Museum of Art BRAVA awards. Click through to watch the award videos about each artist, which are a treat to see.

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Wowza! Xavier Casalta creates his works on paper, one dot at a time. He estimates that a recent piece contains about 48 million dots of meticulously stippled black ink.

As seen on Colossal: Left: Naxos Tetradrachm with Dionysus. Right: Penny Black stamp

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After 50 years, St. Armand in Montreal is downscaling, moving out and heading to a rural property in the Laurentians to continue making paper in a more peaceful, and satisfying, environment. They’ll still make paper, as they have for nearly 50 years (David is 82) but it will be in smaller batches, for fewer artisans, who are willing to make the trek to find them.

Denise Lapointe and David Carruthers laugh in their basement mill as Carruthers fiddles with a pH test he uses to check the quality of the raw materials he will use to make paper. (Matthew Lapierre/CBC)

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This is an amazing story about Awagami Paper in Japan, and their efforts to help Ukranians preserve and protect historic documents.

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Paper Tidbits

• Have you had a chance to listen to my interview with Therese Zemlin on Paper Talk?
• The NC Museum of Art is hosting the Art Book Fair September 22 – 24 in Raleigh.
• I truly admire the work of Elsa Mora, who is showing at Thomas Nickles Project, NY. Elsa used to run the All About Papercutting Blog, which is still a fantastic resource.