Alpha, Beta, ...

I'm working on an editioned alphabet book featuring an arts & crafts font by Dard Hunter, but more on that later. Today, I've been making a deeply pigmented burgundy paper, with a watermark of a "made up" alphabet.



The pigment will (hopefully) run to the edges of the letters, so that when dry, you'll see a subtle alphabet pattern on the sheet.

Radio Show Taping

My art group pals Diane Jacobs and Shu-Ju Wang (Anne Greenwood couldn't make it) taped a radio segment today with Kristie Lesser on her show Everyday Cooking on AM 1360 KUIK. It was 30-minute taping, so we all got to say quite a bit. Kristie was a great hostess, and she had good questions. We talked about the genesis of the project, our individual pieces, what we think about food and our reasons behind our installation. I think we all enjoyed it! The program will air on Saturday at 11am. After it airs, I'll post a link to the segment.



Back in the studio, I prepared my traveling papermaking kit for The Paper Club, a once-a-week after-school class which begins tomorrow! There is a whole art to figuring out how to manage seven children making paper at once!

I also had a nice conversation with the program director at Ethos. They are the new tenants of the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, and I hope to offer some workshops there next spring. I might also be able to screen the Mother Tree documentary in their theater!

In The Studio

I had the pleasure of working with Tobi Taboada in the studio today... she's in Portland all the way from Yucca, California, also doing some work with fellow papermaker Marilyn Wold. Tobi wanted to learn what she could about overbeaten abaca in a few hours, so we pulled sheets, embedded strings and wires and did some experimenting with air vs. restraint drying.

Sound Blocka

I'm designing five block letters (the vowels). I've got four done... and the "O" is my last challenge. Here's a partially cut out "A". I'm still pondering the five papers for the five letters. I'll have these laser cut at Leaf Display, and then I'll be a busy bee assembling them. I'm working on a design for a box to house them all, and then there are dreams of making them really big so that you can walk through them.... they are very architectural.

Fertility Dress

Thanks for clicking on my blog! Here's a photo of one of the dresses that will be featured in my Dress Mobile, which will be on display at the Oregon College of Art & Craft next month! The opening reception is Thursday, October 7th, from 4-7pm.

A Papermaker's Garden

I just took this show down today at the Kenton Library. It was the culmination of a year-long project I did with 3rd and 5th graders at the Portland Village School, where we planted, grew and harvested papermaking plants, took a field trip to Ariadne Garden in NE, made handmade paper ornaments and more.





Here I am with the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition (which funded the project) co-chair Dennise Kowalczyk and NoPo artist Bonnie Meltzer, who attended the opening reception.



The 5th graders made these lovely botanical illustrations and wrote poetry and prose on their own sheets of handmade paper.

Pop-up Paper Sundial

I'm working on this project for Hand Papermaking Magazine's Paper in Motion portfolio. Betsy Cluff is my collaborator and she will letterpress print on the sheet. The image you see here is a watermark. We had fun getting inspriration from Robert Adzema's The Great Sundial Cutout Book, which is full of great designs. It is a bit of a challenge for me to make 160+ sheets of paper – I have to beat 6 loads of pulp, try to match the color each time and my drying box can only dry 40 sheets at a time.