The Best Kept Secret, 200 Years of Blooks
The Sunday Paper #538
January 5, 2025
Happy New Year! The beginning of the year is my busy season, and I have so many things to share with you this week!
January is when I open annual enrollment for The Paper Year, my yearlong online program (deadline to join is 1/10/25) and Weave Through Winter, my month-long online class (registration deadline is 2/1/25). Thank you to those of you who have signed up already!
If you’re interested in either class, please click on the images below to read more, watch the videos and register.
We are developing a wonderful paper community, and it is exciting to be able to offer these programs to a growing number of international participants. I learn so much from everyone I get to work with! Here’s to another year of fun together.
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I had a lovely conversation with Michelle Samour on Paper Talk. Samour is a multi-media artist whose work explores the intersections between science, technology, and the natural world, as well as the socio-political repercussions of redefining borders and boundaries. She is Professor Emerita of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts University, where she taught historical and contemporary approaches to working with handmade paper and pulp. Enjoy our conversation!
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The Best Kept Secret, 200 Years of Blooks, opens at the New York Center for Book Arts on January 16th. The curator, Mindell Dubansky, explains: “I refer to these objects by the convenient term blooks, a contraction of “book-look”. The goal of my studies and collecting endeavors is to determine the scope of the subject through the examination of thematic trends, makers and manufacturers, and object histories; to contextualize blooks within the realms of book history, material culture, and the arts; and to introduce the most interesting blook structures to artists and makers.” The exhibition runs through May 10, 2025.
The Care and Feeding of Books, Maker Unknown, 1947.
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Wowza! The world’s thinnest Japanese paper — just 0.02 millimeters thick and weighing a mere 1.6 grams per square meter, is produced by Hidakawashi Co. , whose customers range from the British Museum in London to the Louvre in Paris. They are utilizing the ultrathin paper in the restoration of cultural artifacts. The paper is durable and so thin that when it layered over documents, even detailed characters remain legible. It also resists yellowing and discoloration.
Hidakawashi Co. President Hiroyoshi Chinzei holds up Japanese paper with a thickness of just 0.02 millimeters in Hidaka, Kochi Prefecture. (Mainichi/Masatoshi Maekawa).
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Check out this mesmerizing shortlisted animated short film by Kei Kanamori.
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Paper Tidbits
- Have you had a chance to take a look at Helen’s 100 Papery Picks for 2024, which I published last week?
- Here’s a 3-minute overview of what Paper Year members created in 2024.
- We’ll be exploring folded forms at the annual Red Cliff Paper Retreat, August 18 – 22, 2025.
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