An overflowing December

In December 2023, I saw the Threads of Power exhibit on lace at the Bard Graduate Center, with a couple of my former hanji students, on a recommendation by Tatiana.

I was struck by the scale and heft of these sample books, full of lace, and also by the color of the pages. They are from St. Gallen, Switzerland, created by Iklé Frères and Co. Chemical in the first three decades of the 20th century. This was when I first started thinking about sample books themselves being artists' books. I began a series, and the first was an old sample book of botanical papers that I made when I first moved to Cleveland with no text that I turned into an artists' book. The second was a much larger one that focused on samples of bark lace and bark grids that I printed.

The third, I knew, would be about indigo's relationship to paper and related fiber. I used two different indigo vats to dye the mostly hanji, but knew that for the cover of this dos-à-dos, I would have to treat it with a paste paper approach to get the stiffness and strength I needed. It's from a large Jang Ji Bang sheet that I saved from my first hanji teacher for well over a decade.

I finished this book in crunch time in December when I realized that the curator for the show that it is going to in Oberlin wanted to set artwork sooner than later. I panicked because I needed to finish both a written book (manuscript) and artists' book simultaneously. Not sure how I survived all that but I knew this book HAD to be done before I left for NYC so that my photographer could shoot it.

One of my last big commitments before I left town was a museum day with Pamela, who generously donated one of my large hanji hanbok to the Kent State University Museum. It came beautifully boxed and wrapped from the Cleveland Museum of Art, where it had been exhibited last year. Its twin is staying there in the CMA collection, generously donated by Ingrid, but will rejoin its counterpart (and a third piece) when I have a solo show at Kent next year. We had a wonderful lunch and tour of the museum with Sarah Spinner Liska, its brilliant new director, and Sara Hume, its longtime wonderful curator.

Somehow I managed after all of this to pack everything, including my oversized book that thankfully fit into the overhead compartment, and fly to New York to see family. But truly, to finish my manuscript. I did take one detour a couple days after landing to New Haven to visit paper conservators at Yale. This is the conservation lab for library services.

Ostensibly I was going to view moulds by Claudine Latron to help me with final pics/research for my book, but my generous host, Marie-France Lemay, arranged for much more.

She had a series of Korean manuscripts pulled for me to view, what a treat!

After lunch with a whole group of paper conservators from the library, art gallery, and center for British art (YCBA), we moved to the latter to view more moulds, this time incredibly impressive old ones that senior conservator Theresa Fairbanks Harris was able to purchase from England.

I wasn't expecting to be able to see these, but it was another wonderful surprise, along with the stories.

I had also asked previously about a sugeta that I knew that my friend Elaine had brought back from Japan in the 80s, and they were able to locate it for me to take a look.

Elaine included a sha, just as she had given me extra sha material many years ago. She had studied papermaking in Japan and was the main driver behind supporting my housing in Oberlin for my annual January intensive, because she knew exactly what I had done in Korea with hanji since she had done something similar, decades prior.

Soyeon Choi, the head paper conservator at YCBA, also showed me Elaine's paper samples that she had donated, with all of her notes. I didn't know that it included hanji, so we're hoping I can get back soon to do a less rushed study trip. Mostly, it was wonderful to connect to people who are as interested in paper as I am.

Before and after that, I had to keep up a relentless schedule of final writing, edits, photo selection, captioning, placement in text, and numbering. It was brutal, and one by one I cancelled every single date I had made with friends, because of time. I was very sad to have to do that because it also meant less time with my nieces, but I had a hard deadline of Dec 31 and was already at least three years late on this manuscript. There was a lot of last-minute demanding of high-res photos, which I could only do to my living subjects. This is an amazing pic from the 70s that the late great Helmut Becker shared with me years ago. I was so scared I wouldn't be able to do his story justice because I hadn't been able to meet him in person before he passed away in Sept, but it truly was an honor to piece it together from the unimaginably generous "avalanche" of material he gave to me—knowing that even that was only a sliver of his archives.

Helmut's chapter is the first, and the last is Brian Queen's. They are both Canadians and I like that everyone is sandwiched between. I didn't get to include this one in the book but I LOVE this image of Brian and his brother in their former work shop (where they fabricated custom light fixtures for decades) working on one of his many big paper projects: a hot-air balloon!

On xmas eve, I made the mistake of trying to push through a chapter, only to burn out my eyes. Meaning, they felt like they were on fire all night. I could barely sleep and was so worried that I did permanent damage. I could barely sleep and when I did, had nightmares of my eyeballs full of blood. That was my lesson in moderation, and I was forced (for good) to take xmas off completely from the book, so that we could visit my sister's family. This is my 4-yo niece's drawing; she is already a joyful artist, dancer, and book maker!

On the way, we stopped at H Mart and Paris Baguette. I so miss having reliable Korean markets and outlets closeby, but was amazed late last year to discover that a Tous Les Jours (Korean bakery chain) is coming within walking distance of my house! Shocking that it would finally happen in Northeast Ohio, and I was delighted for days and days.

My 11-yo niece did my nails that day, and I was so impressed. She has also been an artist for years but is particularly into makeup, accessories, clothes, and hair. I wished that they would stay on forever but of course were demolished once I got back to the studio and taught papermaking. But so fun while it lasted.

I let her do her own designs on every nail but this was my one request! Back with my parents, my mom worked around the clock to feed me three big meals and a snack daily, planning the best food to feed my brain and eyes as I worked. She also crucially helped me with photo selection, and I was so glad to share the process with her as she is so removed from my working life (it's essentially a mystery to her, as it is to most people). Miraculously, I finished with about 36 hours left before deadline, and then headed straight into the city to shoot my art, see the girls, and do NYE celebrating with family. This book has been eight hard years in the making, and I was shocked that I finally got it past the first big deadline. Of course, my publisher's edits have been languishing for weeks now, but I have a good reason for that.

I stayed with family for the first New Year's since I moved to Ohio, now that I am free to do anything I like, and was grateful to be able to bow to my parents on Jan 1 in a ritual that begins in childhood—something that I missed for 11 years. Most of 2025 will be my threshold year, and what a year (lunar calendar) it has already been, only two days in! More on that in the next post.