January: Winter Term 2025 at Oberlin College

This January was the first time since I launched this paper/book course at Oberlin that I arrived as a fully free woman. I've been hatching, as Velma says, and for this round, I tried really hard to drop my expectations of students. I also decided to try a new method to dealing with late students, which is basically just starting class on time and devoting myself to the ones who are on time and especially the ones who come early. This year I had two who regularly came early and could not believe my luck. Day one we were so busy scraping paper mulberry bark and separating milkweed bast from its core that I forgot to take photos. But even from the first morning, listening to these students talk and interact, I thought, "I think I love them already." This is day 2: cleaning the cooked bark that they scraped on day 1.

Because I didn't want them to be distraught that three hours of processing milkweed would only lead to about 10 sheets, I donated my milkweed from my fall residency to beef up the batch. Here, they're beating Florida paper mulberry from Amy, always reliable and makes gorgeous sheets.

They went into the usual sheetforming,

pressing with the new hydraulic jack,

parting sheets,

and boarding sheets. This group in particular saw more than those in the past, and asked if they could just expand completely into this adjacent room where janitors store their supplies. I figured, why not? And we suddenly had many more perfect marble surfaces to board sheets. We kept losing students during the first week to sickness, so I think we only had a full cohort for a couple of those days, but this is my favorite shot and includes seven of eight.

Before our last session that week, I also took them to the art library to view artists' books, which was a much better way to time this visit. Why I didn't change the schedule years ago is one of many questions I had for myself. But by the end of this day, I felt really good about the class and what they had managed to do in the first week. I was also completely astounded by how good they were, how little I had to explain, and how well they responded to my request to help me in my newfound disability (they had to do more heavy lifting for me).

The next day, I was in the studio all day to do memorial papermaking in honor of Alison Ricker, longtime science librarian at Oberlin, who tragically passed away suddenly last year after an accidental fall. Taylor, Pam, Megan, and Michelle helped cut up turtlenecks that Alison had donated last year to our studio for rags, and I added some 2nd cut cotton to beef up the material so we could make paper for her husband, Ray English—my very first college advisor and longtime director of the Oberlin libraries.

Taylor had saved the class yet again when I discovered the prior weekend when arriving to check the studio and prep for the first day of class that our fiber order had never arrived. Thankfully, he was in his lab at 5am on Monday to pull his stash to show me and offered whatever I could use. There wasn't quite enough Thai kozo so I used Chinese mitsumata, so we had four different fibers in the end for Asian papermaking: Florida paper mulberry, milkweed, Thai kozo, and Chinese mitsumata. That was insane and will never happen again! After this Saturday papermaking session, I had three different dates with new and old friends on Sunday and then spent 4 non-consecutive hours running the new beater until almost 11pm to make pulp paint pulp.

Monday of week 2, students cut up a bunch of rags to feed the beater, in five different colors (we didn't use them all).

These are two different batches of cotton rag paper

For years, I had saved this batch of outer yucca leaves from my own garden. I finally had students trim, rinse, clean, cook, rinse, and then give to me to run the beater over one of many lunch breaks that I spent in the studio either cooking or beating. They didn't appreciate it as much as I did; it was a beautiful pulp, especially mixed with abaca.

Here are some of the yucca sheets coming out of the drybox

This is also the first year I ever allowed students to pigment and make their own pulp paint colors. Well, this is the first year I've had to make the pulp since we used to order it all. I hadn't done it since grad school because it's not my thing but I made a gorgeous batch, except I made way too much of it (one pound).

Pulp painting with stencils—almost everyone hand cut their own this year

Loading the stack dryer, which now has 4 more layers, which make a big difference!

These abaca sheets were for wire armatures, which I think only one student actually enjoyed. The rest told me at the end of class that I could easily excise it from the curriculum, which I will!

But the ones who really enjoyed it made wonderful pieces. The lower flower is by Anouk and the bark lace wrapped glass with paired blossom is by Oliver.

On day 9, I had planned a full day of European style papermaking, but higher powers scheduled a calligraphy workshop that I felt I should take my students to, so we spent the morning making paper thread.

In the afternoon, we visited the main library for Mike Gold's calligraphy/lettering presentation, demos, and showcase of work. I was amazed how much things have changed in libraries, to allow for a literal bucket of (permanent) ink and giant brushes! But I'm glad he did, this was my students' favorite part because they become fully embodied in the process of mark making.

The following day I set up for paper decoration, which included Ed's demo and guidance through marbling.

I was actually very surprised that they did not want to marble more, but I think I had run them ragged so by the time they did their assigned sheets, I let them go early. That was my big mistake, because I didn't realize they hadn't cleaned the back room full of marbling setups. One student (who grew up in the same city as this one) was left to clean it all up and I was mortified by my misstep. I tried not to beat myself up all weekend about it but moved through various waves of disappointment and rage before friends and family reminded me that teaching kids to clean is the hardest thing to do, and often impossible.

But before all that, they made paste papers and did suminagashi, pictured here. I was upset that their patterns slid off of the paper I provided, which shocked me. I thought these were slam dunk sheets but later realized they had been ones I used for dyeing (the one thing I cut from this year's schedule). The best sheets for dyeing need to be sized. The best sheets for suminagashi need to be UNsized. AGH. I would have used leftover hosho paper from the pad but the weight of the sheets were drastically changed over the last few years to be too light to survive full water weight.

I had also thought I wouldn't do this, as I only intermittently keep it in the curriculum (partly due to logistics). But now that we have a new electrical outlet, it felt more possible. About half the class waxed some of their sheets, and it was very instructive for me to learn that not everyone is familiar with ironing. Regardless, I was so glad to have the new outlet, and glad that *I* was the one who sprayed water into it to disable it completely. When the electrician came, he asked, What happened? And I had to tell him that I had sprayed the entire wall accidentally while filling the new beater. Better me than a student, and a great way to demonstrate the need for a waterproof cover, which was installed a few days later. We also got new sink faucets, which was exciting, as the bathrooms outside had been down to one functional handle out of six. Now all three sinks work.

By the end of day 10, I was really beat after 13 straight days in the studio, and I drove home to celebrate a friend's 80th birthday—a wonderful way to connect early in the year with a bunch of artist friends. I was so happy to be back in my bed. As much as I appreciate my housing near campus, the bed is worse than most dorm beds (b/c it is one, but likely 20 years old). I also delivered art to a buyer, and went out with another friend for dinner the following night. But instead of spending the long weekend home, I went back Sunday with more supplies so that I could make paper—too much was left after we lost the full day of sheet forming. I invited Yiyun, a new history professor who has researched bamboo papermaking in China, to join me. Then I realized that I had forgotten key supplies at home, so I had a snack around 5pm and drove back...not realizing that I was driving into a blizzard!! After a long scary slog through whiteout conditions on the highway where fully half the cars had their hazards on, and in general a month of lots of snow and cold, I couldn't stop thinking of Foreman by Herb.

 

But I think it was, as always, the universe or my own self insisting that I take one more night at home, and I was grateful for it. After a better sleep, I headed back to campus the next morning to set up an indigo vat in the studio with Michelle and Haoyuan, who was in town for the long weekend from Boston. Right after he told me that he was coming to town, I got an email from Ellen, another beloved student from a former class. These three were each standout students from different courses, and I was so happy to be able to spend time with them all this month in the studio. It was SO helpful to have him and Michelle with me after an inadequate paper studio cleanup, because they needed almost no instruction to take care of pellons and funnel two buckets of pulp paint into a million yogurt containers from Taylor to fill the freezer. I will probably never need to make more of this because 1. we have so much and 2. I might also cut this from the class!

 

The next day, we started a four-day week and moved everything to the main library special collections classroom to set up for bookbinding. Again, I was astounded by the speed with which they zipped through demos and structures. By the end, we were a full day or more ahead of schedule.

Since we were already there, viewing books and objects in special collections is so easy. After day 14, I took a little break before heading to the old dining co-op where I used to work and eat almost 30 years ago, because three of my students eat there and invited me for pizza night (all of the dining co-ops have Friday pizza night and back in the day, the pizza chefs were quite exalted and worked almost competitively to concoct different toppings and the perfect dough). It was great to be able to interact with one of my more quiet students in that setting, but my body is no longer built for pizza made by college students!

For my final weekend, I took care of the last bit of dyed hanji by ironing the 20 sheets I dyed for my knitted book edition, as well as two large pieces from 2009 that I took apart to dye and recycle.

I invited Ellen and Michelle to join me to finish up the indigo vat. I was surprised by how exhausted it was already but was so happy to share. So much of the month consisted of me making up lectures in my head and saying none of it to my students. I forget that much of teaching involves editing, and while I did not lecture on the gift economy to my students, I hope they felt that ethos throughout class.

Michelle brought snacks on Sunday after I mentioned on Saturday that I was hungry (which is, almost always the case, especially when in the studio), and helped finish making the final sheets of paper from the final pulp dregs after I got through the Asian fiber. She begins her final semester next week and I will miss her horribly after having the honor of being her teacher since Jan 2020. Part of raising good students is this mutual nourishment. I was so touched when Haoyuan arrived with gifts. Some were ones he has given me every year since we met in 2022, the year that Ellen was in class with me as a first-year: spring couplets and calligraphy for the new year. But he also brought a beautiful glass ornament from Egypt that he brought all the way from Boston on the plane in his bag so that it wouldn't get crushed.

Due to the schedule this year, we only had two days in our final week, and I showed another book structure that I usually don't cover because I could tell they wanted it and could handle it. However, doing all of the prep for the binding blew out my rotator cuff, which is not great timing as I was hoping to make a bunch of art starting next week. For our last day, I couldn't sleep, so I was up at 5am packing and went to the paper studio at 6:30am to unload the final batch of paper, organize my things, and prepare for students to load my car later in the day. For about a week or so, I had noticed especially before my early morning swims that my car key felt rough in the ignition and wouldn't turn. Each time, I pulled it out, flipped it over, and started it. My thought was, I'll change keys when I get home as it looked pretty worn.

Well, this time, the key would not budge. I flagged down a random man who parked his car and asked if he had ever had a key refuse to turn OR exit the ignition. He didn't, and came over to help jiggle it, but it only came out half a centimeter. He advised me to call campus security to ask for WD-40, and they transferred me to facilities, which transferred me to maintenance, who told me that they don't touch personal cars but would send someone. The guy sprayed and got the key out, started it, turned it off, got the key out, and gave it to me and left. Of course, then I tried and it wouldn't start again. He told me the pins had dropped and I needed a new tumbler; the mechanics who had just done my oil change the prior day told me I had to go to the dealer. So then I had to do my morning stuff on foot (bad for my disability), and called dealers (all far from my home dealer) and a tow company and my insurance company. By the time class started, I told them to start on thank you cards for the staff and faculty who facilitate this class, and then had to run to meet the tow truck. My hope for a chill and fun last day were dashed when the dealer gave the worst options: no repair since the part is discontinued, then no repair until the following week after finding an aftermarket part.

[one student is missing here, our guest Yiyun is standing in the back.] After a ton of checking in with various folks, I was cleared to spend one more night in my housing, got a ride to the dealer at the end of the day to get a loaner, and was so sad to have exposed my students to so much of my stress. But they were as kind, gracious, and understand as they have been since their very first day, when my instincts told me that I had finally hit the lottery with a wonderful group. Yes, my next residency slated to begin Sunday is now delayed and truncated because I cannot get there. But that is likely another blessing and reminder to stop booking myself so tightly (I had two days between NY and Oberlin, and five days between Oberlin and VA). I'm grateful for the extra time and managed to cancel almost all of my many appointments for the last few days except for physical therapy today, which I needed very badly. My PT explained that what I did by working nonstop was create a "setback." That sounds very obvious but was very helpful for me to understand why I became more and more unable to do my PT exercises as the month wore on.

I also wondered if the lore about this threshold year is true, since this disaster began right as the lunar new year did, and I wasn't wearing any red to protect me. But I didn't have much time to worry about it: my students flooded me with wonderful thank you cards and stayed to the bitter end, trying to figure out the best way to help me since they could not longer load my car (since it was gone). They came up with a better solution than I had, and offered to help even after class ended. When I finally got up the next day at 5am to pack yet again, I swam a bit before heading home in the loaner. I wanted so badly to sleep but instead unloaded and unpacked the car. Soon my art from my Kalamazoo show also arrived in four boxes, and I also picked up mail from my friend, who had been taking care of the other packages.

Mid-morning, I finally sat down to re-read the thank you cards that I could barely focus on while sorting out car drama. I got to one in particular that said, "....thanks to you any initial anxiety I had was quickly replaced with my renewed interest fueled by your clear love for your work and this practice." I began to weep and could not stop crying. It wasn't entirely from their pinpointing of how much I care about what I do, but a release and relief that I was finally done. They made my life so much easier than other years, and yet I worked harder than ever because they were so engaged, curious, and wanted to try so many things. When I meet students like this, I want to give them the world. Plus, the beater required extra time to sort out how it would fit into class given how noisy the space already is. Beyond that, they gave me feedback the last day that helped me realize that I have been doing something insane for the last 11 years: trying to teach three graduate classes in one month to students that are 18-22 years old.

Two nights ago, I finally went through my giant teaching bin of book samples and purged with aplomb. All this time, I thought I had to teach everything, to prove I could do it all. I wasn't thinking about how to best serve these students, only trying to convince myself and everyone else that I deserved to do this or was worthy enough. But everything has changed since 2014. What I can offer is so much more than a zillion book structures. How do I get to the very heart of what is important in making paper and turning it into books? That is all I have to do, and the rest is for another class and another teacher.

This has become a ridiculously long post so I'll close here. Fingers crossed that my car is ready Monday! All of the photos for class are here.