Mhd. Hussain Kagzi getting ready to form a sheet. (Mina Takahashi)
Friday, October 26. “Papermaking by Hand in India,” Radha Pandey ✧ “Daluang Beaten Bark Paper and Contemporary Artists in Indonesia,” Lisa Miles ✧ “Traditional Japanese Kites & their Influence of 21st-Century Kite Makers,” Scott Skinner & Ali Fujino
Radha Pandey discussed papermaking by hand in India and what that process entails, as well as traditional dyeing techniques alongside her own experiments with non-traditional natural dyes. Pandey discussed the history of this kind of paper, and then went on to describe each step in this traditional papermaking process, from the beating of the fiber with large wooden hammers, to the techniques used for pulling sheets, to burnishing the paper on curved wooden boards. Pandey noted that the position the papermaker is in while pulling sheets influences the quality and thickness of the paper, as does the floating action of the mould when in the vat of pulp. Pandey argues that when pulling sheets from the vat, the seated or squatted position of the papermaker is what allows them to consistently make the same thickness of paper throughout an entire run. [Read more]
Saturday, October 27. “The Nexus of Being and Place: Interpreting Human Origins in Handmade Paper,” Lynn Sures ✧ “The Driving Force of the Universe Made Visible,” Heather Peters ✧ “Printmaking with Dirca Bark Paper,” Zachary Hudson and Andrew Zandt
Lynn Sures reported on her work funded by the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship into early human and animal origins, beginning with drawings of fossils on her own handmade abaca, flax and hemp paper. After research in museum collections in Washington DC, she traveled to Kenya with her handmade kenaf paper to document archeological sites where early human remains had been found along with evidence of tools and tool making, or “the development of the ‘maker’ in a species that directly preceded ours.” All of these drawings were then reinterpreted in pulp paintings. On the process she says, “These drawings are very literal. I’m trying to understand who I am looking at.” [Read more]
Conference attendees in the composing room of the Grinnell Herald-Register composing room. (Tad Boehmer)
Wednesday, October 24. Led by Gary Frost and Rich Dana
As part of the pre-conference historical printing tour on Wednesday, 18 visitors got an exclusive preview of the Grinnell Herald-Register Renovation and Restoration project. Like many small-town papers, the Herald-Register closed their in-house printing operation decades ago, but unlike many others, the owners mothballed the letterpress shop rather than scrapping it. Conference-goers were the first outside group to inspect the local team’s progress in bringing the “back shop” back to life, peruse the extensive collection of standing job type, and talk one-on-one with the Martha Pinder and Peggy (Pinder) Elliot, third-generation owner/publishers of the beloved twice-weekly newspaper. [Read more]
A post sheet-forming group portrait, Timothy Barrett holds the megaphone. (Barry Phipps)
Friday, October 26. An audience participation demonstration with Tim Barrett & his team
After a call for assistance, twenty-two people were ready to help with this ambitious project, and a bigger crowd was ready with their cellphones and their enthusiastic presence to see the action. The full 5 × 27 foot sheet required 88 liters of water, 23 liters of (bleached abaca) pulp and 58 liters of formation aid. This solution was gradually and continuously added using buckets at either end while the nearly two dozen volunteers held and moved the mould. Although we tried practicing with 40 lbs. of dry marbles just before the real process, it turned out to be ineffective. Marbles move differently than pulp. [Read more]
Left: The Model 5 Linotype and Cpl. Jimmie Kreiter in Pneumonia Hollow, Chaumont, France. (GPO 20101229029) Right: Jimmie Kreiter and the General Pershing Linotype at GPO, 1950s. (GPO 20101229028)
A few days before the U.S. Government Printing Office History Exhibit opened in 2011, one of our maintenance supervisors brought a man whom he introduced as his father in to the new main room of the exhibit area, looking concerned. [Read more]
University of Iowa Center for the Book Student Amy Childress visiting the Stone Creek. (Kimberly Maher)
Thursday, October 25. Exhibitions and open studios in and around the downtown area
Conference participants visited exhibitions and artists’ studios around the downtown area on this tour. One exhibition in the public library’s special collections displayed handmade paper and works using handmade paper from their collection. The downtown shops had a window exhibition that participants enjoyed both from the inside and outside. The community studio, Public Space 1 (PS1), had the Spooky House exhibition; PS1 just remodeled the exhibition space, and the display was also good for this Halloween season. [Read more]
Nicole Donnelly, foreground, leading Yoga for Papermakers at the Paper Points North annual Friends of Dard Hunter conference at the Banff Center, 2015. (May Babcock)
As someone who suffers from insomnia and monkey mind at night, meditation and yoga have always been some of the recommendations that I have received from people. Meditation is a practice that I try to do daily, but somehow it just helps to calm the anxiety that comes with the fact that I didn’t get to sleep. This presentation grabbed my attention because more than being yoga, it was yoga for papermakers. The demonstration, scheduled right after lunch, attracted only four people. Nonetheless, the instructor was highly motivated. [Read more]
Peeling off the sheet. (Lisa Dunseth. More photos on the Northern California Chapter’s Flickr.)
Wednesday, October 24
Tim Barrett, our esteemed host from the University of Iowa Center For The Book, instructed seventy-seven conference attendees, in seven one-hour sessions, on how to make paper. Although none of us in my tour even came close to the “2,000 sheets-per-day” rate we certainly enjoyed trying. [Read more]
APHA is pleased to announce that the 2018 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship has been awarded to Jordan Wingate, a Ph.D. student in English at the University of California, Los Angeles. [Read More]
2:30 pm, Thursday, December 13, 2018 Library of Congress Rosenwald Room LJ 205 Jefferson Building, 2nd Floor Free and Open to the Public Space is Limited
“Working towards a feminist history of printing”
What does it mean to strive for a feminist praxis when the subject of your work is not printers but printing? If there are no human agents in your story, how do you make it an inclusive one that invites everyone to participate? In this talk, Dr. Werner draws on her experience of writing a book introducing handpress printing to explore how to create a feminist history of printing. Looking at how scholars, theorists, artists, and poets have talked about the acts of printing and being a female maker, she weaves a practice of historical connections and present acts that makes a case for the necessity of opening our field to all questioners. [Read more]
