HAND PAPERMAKING NEWSLETTER Number 94, April 2011
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HAND PAPERMAKING NEWSLETTER Number 94, April 2011 Newsletter Editor: Shireen Holman Advertising & Listings: Mary Tasillo Desktop Production: Amy Richard Columnists: Sidney Berger, Susan Gosin, Maureen and Simon Green, Helen Hiebert, Elaine Koretsky, Winifred Radolan, Mary Tasillo. Hand Papermaking Newsletter is published Dear Hand Papermaking, quarterly. Annual subscriptions are $55 in North Cindy Bowden was Director of the Robert C. Williams American Museum of America or $80 overseas, including two issues of Papermaking from 1991 until December of 2010. During this time we saw a deepening the journal Hand Papermaking. Two year rates and elaborating of the museum and its collections. Significant historic and contempo- are discounted: $105 in North America or $155 rary art works, papers, and books have been added to the archive. Extensive traveling overseas. To subscribe, send a check to the address exhibitions have spread the word far and wide about the world of handmade paper. A below, call or fax us to use Visa or MasterCard, beautiful exhibition space was created at the museum and has consistently shown world- or visit our website. Foreign subscribers may use a class work related to handmade papers. Under Cindy’s leadership the George W. Mead credit card, or pay in U.S. dollars via money order Paper Education Center doubled the size of the museum and created new exhibition or check marked payable through a U.S. bank. area and classroom space for the many workshops offered by the staff on a weekly basis. For more subscription information, or a list of Through good times and challenging times Cindy kept a firm hand at the wheel and back issue contents and availability, contact: guided the museum forward, always forward. Hand Papermaking, Inc. Cindy has moved on to yet a new series of exciting challenges as Director of the PO Box 1070, Beltsville, MD 20704-1070 American Association of Woodturners based in St. Paul, Minnesota. In January she left Phone: (800) 821-6604 or (301) 220-2393 Atlanta for the wild and snowy Midwest to direct the activities of a much larger organization, though part of her heart will always reside with the paper museum. We wish her well on Fax: (301) 220-2394 this new adventure! Interim Director Teri Williams is a seasoned professional who will E-mail: [email protected] be leading the museum as it makes its next steps forward, and we look forward to work- Web: www.handpapermaking.org ing with her. The deadline for the next newsletter (July 2011) Steve Miller is May 15. Please direct all correspondence to the Chair of the Advisory Board address above. We encourage letters from our subscribers on any relevant topic. We also solicit comments on articles in Hand Papermaking maga- Dear Readers, zine, questions or remarks for newsletter columnists, It’s our 25th anniversary year, full of creative energy and news of special events or activities. Classified ads and extraordinary activities. The upcoming Summer are $2.00 per word with a 10-word minimum. Rates issue of our magazine will focus on the surprising, for display ads are available upon request. wondrous, and astonishing nature of handmade paper; perhaps you’ll find a special treat inside your copy, and Hand Papermaking is a 501(c)(3) non-profit just wait until you see the center spread! The amazing organization. Staff: Tom Bannister, Executive pop-ups in our latest portfolio will raise eyebrows in Director; Mina Takahashi, Magazine Editor; varied venues throughout the year, and a call for entries Shireen Holman, Newsletter Editor; Mary Tasillo, is now circulating for the next one. A rare assembly of Advertising and Listings. surprise leaders will convene at a weekend retreat to imagine the Board of Directors: Sidney Berger, Frank Bran- future of Hand Papermaking—the field in general and non, Shannon Brock, Zina Castañuela, Jeffrey our organization in particular. Twenty-five noted papermakers, one selected from each Cooper, Georgia Deal, Susan Mackin Dolan, Jim year of our magazine, contributed paper samples for a commemorative book; see it at Escalante, Susan Gosin, Ann Marie Kennedy, www.handpapermaking.org/anniversary and consider giving gift copies to your paper- Anne Q. McKeown, Julie McLaughlin, Andrea maker friends. Peterson, Margaret Prentice, Amy Richard, Gibby Our anniversary committee has planned a number of surprise parties and I hope Waitzkin, Eileen Wallace, Beck Whitehead. to see you at one or more of these worldwide gatherings. They will be small get-togeth- Board of Advisors: Timothy Barrett, Simon ers, mostly in people’s homes and studios, often featuring a surprise guest papermaker. Blattner, Gregor R. Campbell, Mindell Duban- We’ll take photos and video, then weave the documentation into a cohesive presentation sky, Jane M. Farmer, Helen C. Frederick, Dard promoting our anniversary. Perhaps we could still plan a party at your place? Take a look Hunter III, Elaine Koretsky, James Sitter, Claire at http://events.handpapermaking.org for the latest schedule. Van Vliet. Co-founders: Amanda Degener and Thank you all for your enthusiastic support, making all these special celebrations Michael Durgin. possible, and ensuring a bright future for Hand Papermaking. Tom Bannister april 2011 Dear Editor, and many other purposes. In addition to screen is its slowness. This created the need Paul Denhoed’s excellent article on Tim beaten bark being used for writing, paper for a large number of papermaking screens. Barrett filled me in on some of Tim’s earlier made from silk was also utilized. There seems to be no Chinese literature history and his thought processes. It’s a Ling translates into English a definition mentioning the invention of a detachable very welcome addition and truly instructive. of silk paper from a Chinese dictionary, Shuo screen so that multiple sheets of paper could I wanted to add that what has always struck Wen Chieh Tzi, compiled by Hsu Chen at the be made by dipping the mould into the pulp me when I’ve been lucky enough to hear end of the first century AD: “Paper is a sheet and transferring the wet sheet onto another Tim speak is the way he honors the humanity of intertwined fibres of silk waste well beaten surface, thereby eliminating the need for of his fellow papermakers, both historic and in water and lifted out of the water in the form many moulds. However, early papers of the current, in the deepest way. He’s created a of a thin layer by the medium of a screen.” He second century AD, found in the Dunhuang great model for all of us to follow. believes that the idea probably developed from caves, exhibit line and chain markings, show- the manufacture of silk thread, since the silk ing that a bamboo screen was used to form Best, cocoons had to be boiled first, and rinsed on the sheets.6 Dorothy Field a screen. Silk waste remained on the screen, Another Chinese historian, Juzhong Victoria, BC, Canada and when dry was peeled off and used as a Yang, agrees with Pan Jixing and Shun- writing or painting surface.3 Sheng Ling. He wrote, “During > ALONG THE PAPER ROAD... I discovered another refer- the period from 770 B.C. to 221 ence to silk cocoon paper in B.C., paper was made out of This regular feature offers paper musings from 1986, when I interviewed Dr. extracted cocoon waddings. It is Elaine Koretsky—renowned paper historian, Aijaz A. Bandey, Director of the the first stage in the history of researcher, and traveler. This column is a reprint of Shri Pratap Singh Museum in Chinese papermaking. In West an essay about the origin of paper that Elaine wrote Srinagar, Kashmir, India. The Han Dynasty, people found for the International Paper Museum’s catalog. Museum has an important that the worn linen fabrics can y Paper Road research just hit another collection of ancient Chinese also be made into paper in the Mimpasse. Our two brutal snowstorms books and artifacts. Dr. Bandey emphasized same way. However, this kind of cocoon in January not only prevented me from visit- that in the past, paper had been made from waddings and fabric waddings could not ing Harvard University museums to investi- beaten silk cocoons. He cited a painting, be mass produced due to some limitations. gate early Chinese paper that was supposedly “Namat Nama,” the earliest Moghul painting, However, in the East Han Dynasty, Cai Lun made from beaten silk cocoons, but also composed of a layer of woven silk, then a layer began to use newly emerged sharp steel - created a power outage that eliminated the of beaten silk cocoon paper. He also told me cutting tools to cut materials before pound ing pulp, and the craft of handmade pulp use of my computer to write a new article for that he possessed a book written on the silk was recorded then, which marked the inven- the April issue of Hand Papermaking Newslet- cocoon paper, which he kept for safety at his tion of papermaking. Cai Lun’s invention ter. Therefore, my current article is a reprint own home, and would bring it to the Museum had a historical impact on Chinese history of of the essay I wrote for the catalog of the the next day for my inspection. Unfortunately, - International Paper Museum’s exhibit “The I was unable to spend another day in Kashmir. ancient times from the aspect of the utiliza tion of materials and craft.”7 Origin of Paper in China.” Dr. Bandey suggested I look for such books at the British Museum in London or the Metro- . Sponsored by the International Paper Historians (IPH). For a From Bark Beating and Silk Waste to the politan Museum in New York.