Every inch of June covered in hanji

Final post with my original skeleton! If we don't count teeth in that. Surgery is on Wed, total hip replacement. Prior to that, I insanely scheduled myself to the hilt in a way that was unwise and yet I really felt there was no other way to squeeze out all I could from this joint. After my trip to NY, I immediately prepped for a NYT shoot. This is the aftermath of it, 12 hours later, when I had taken my drying setup outside to grab the last tendrils of the sun. Thank goodness we were in long days!

The next morning was my interview, and then that evening Joko flew in to assist me for three intense weeks of teaching three different groups. My first group was a dream, gelling from the start, and being extremely patient and hardworking through serious swampy summer weather.

I had made two new aprons and they were a hit!

This was the first time I had a beautifully-trained and experienced assistant who could take on teaching duties. Joko took care of ssangbal instruction and vats in the back room and I loved watching her teaching approach. She tells people I was her first papermaking teacher but she really has done so much of it on her own, learning from all kinds of people everywhere and practicing it back home in Puerto Rico.

The first group made the most paper, and we for sure had to get into the showers again, even with the big new drying walls!

It was also a comfort to be able to completely trust and rely on Joko to do things like grade and sort our socialist paper.

The fantastic thing about using the Oberlin paper studio is that we were able to take field trips during lunch to the museum, art library, and main library. This is a Korean book I got in a shop in Seoul for special collections at Oberlin, likely a practice book, nothing special, but fun to use the new flat backlight for viewing.

The only downside to Joko always being three steps ahead of me and doing herculean assisting is that she got very little time at the vat. I did sneak her in for some agitation and one bit of sheet forming.

Second week was my Korean diaspora group—which happens by chance every time. I was so happy to meet people who had been referred by past students, and loved how game they were for everything. The weather had abated, thank goodness, and this one day we needed to press the post but I was unwilling to open the press wider to fit everything in. I told Tori to throw their body onto the whole stack to try and compress it by about a half inch, inch max. I have done this before but in the moment didn't have my apron and boots on so I couldn't directly demo it. It worked!

This group also made enough paper that we had to maximize the drying walls and pour into the shower stalls. Here are photos from week 1, and week 2.

Oh, of course by the end of week one, I got terribly sick, which rarely happens to me. The same day, my phone up and died but I was too sick to get a new one until the day before the next class began. I started to get better but then the virus boomeranged back and hit me right before the third class started. By then, Joko and I had moved ourselves and studio equipment from Oberlin back east.

The final week was to teach Korean papermaking and paper crafts to the inaugural cohort of the Morgan professional certificate program. Hours were really intense but fortunately the weather held and mosquitoes are no longer reigning in the studio. I was glad to be able to bring the entire group to a point where they could start a post and get going on their own, so that they would be prepared to work without me. Joko here is teaching them about grading/curating sheets.

By the end, novices had transformed into people who looked like they worked in a hanji mill, getting boards ready for parted sheets, and ready to prep fiber for independent hanji making. So exciting to see the hard work move right into practice. That week, a great story about my work dropped via Oberlin.

Then I had to roll immediately into getting my home studio ready for the Kent State University Museum staff to come the next morning after class ended to pack and take away about 50 pieces of my art for my upcoming solo show. I had a window of exactly one day, so they accommodated me, even though they had all worked so hard getting a different exhibit up and opened the previous night! I thought I was stressed, but they were so professional and efficient.

So glad to know about these McMaster-Carr bags, though once they were done, the walls were so barren that the room was echoing. It felt like I was moving out! But truly, after working so hard to produce enough inventory, I was relieved to have it safely delivered to the museum. This is another group I trust completely and am excited to see how they design the exhibit. See you on the other side of surgery!

From February to May, studio to the road

I miscounted the number of pieces I finished from Feb to May over 13 working weeks. I think it was 29. This is the smaller version of a larger bark dress I wanted to finish. As with my previous Phloem series a few years back, this dress was the matrix for many many pressure and ghost prints I made last year.

Once I was done printing it, I could assemble it. The skirt was a collaborative effort with mighty help from Michelle, in 2024.

That piece was a warm up for this one I've had on deck for years, saving the largest bark grids for a full-sized dress. I ended up not using this tie but had to try many versions before settling on the final. I avoided construction for a while but once I got started, remembered that it's simply a matter of putting in the hours.

It was the first one we set up to shoot, and I was overjoyed to be in a larger space with Stefan given the quantity and size of the work, plus the staging areas I needed to assemble everything before dismantling again to pack up.

A pleasure to let this one breathe, especially after sorting out a different strap system for the skirt than the previous ones.

This was a brief trip east, so I could only take in one small show and one interminably long film. SR was my student at Oberlin over 11 years ago and an evident star from the beginning. I have loved watching them grow and inhabit a singular life and career. This was a lovely circle, to be here with their cotton/abaca/linen pieces after having coached an Oberlin student from last year as he begins art internship experiences. And in another circle that arcs even wider, I met Caron at the show and before the film. She had surprised me a couple years ago in Manhattan, which was a delight, but this was a proper catch up.

She and I met 16 years ago at Saltonstall, a wonderful residency in Ithaca, where I made a huge amount of art that set many ideas spinning out into the world and continue to this day in my practice. I made milkweed paper there with her help. Before I headed south to NYC, I drove straight from Cleveland to Ithaca to spend two heavenly nights back in my old studio/apt. It was a head trip in the best way.

The balcony was as I remembered, though everything in a different season than when I was there in September. Now I could look out and see gutters and understand what they are and what happens if you don't clean them. Why? Because I bought a house in the intervening years. Now, residencies, or any kind of travel away from my home means I get a glorious break from worrying about the structure that I am solely responsible for. I appreciate much more how other people and orgs take care of their buildings.

From the main house deck, you can see the new cladding on the old house plus the new structure built onto it. I had time to sit inside the new section after walking a bit, to try and figure out where the downstairs artist would work now that the old studio space was an accessible apt. After sitting and staring at the gallery for a bit, I figured it out! Last time I was here, I had a borrowed car. This is my real car now but this will be my last year with it. New hip in a month means new car before snow falls, I've decided. It took forever to be ready, but it's time, even if it means giving up my CD player.

Because rain was imminent, I walked right away, enough to enter the woods and get back without big injury. Enough to appreciate that someone else mows! Almost instantly, I could clear my head as I was completely alone, amongst old memories and friendly ghosts, seeing how everything had changed and nothing had changed. And considering all that has happened in my life since.

I came for Judy's show. She was the director when I was here, and the current director Lesley thought it would be a great idea to invite faraway alumni to return and surprise Judy during the last two weekends of her exhibit, when she'd be sitting in the gallery. I was so excited for this. Once I arrived, what felt the most special is that this is the kind of place with a leader who could even concoct such a celebratory scheme. You can see the movable wall that clicked in my mind to understand how the space now works when they are at full capacity with five residents.

Of course because I cannot ever travel without work in tow, I brought a bag of knitting to edition a book that I was not allowed to touch while churning out new dress work for my summer solo museum show. I was pleased to re-engage in this work I did in 2010 in this very same space, and continue it on train and subway commutes in NYC, because an unexpected order arrived today. Now I can go home and not panic since it's closer to done than when I arrived.

It took her a while to figure out what was going on, but once it sunk it, Judy was fully in her element. I had been able to take in the show in total solitude and as soon as I saw this self portrait, I knew that she would be a great advisor: she had a double hip replacement. She and I both were born with a similar deformity, and it was so reassuring to hear that her first replacement was only two years after the one I will get in a month, age-wise. Her friend Debbie took the most delightful series of photos of us that captured our joy.

This is one of Judy's artists' books, made in part by nature's first papermaker, the wasp. In the gallery, we put together the fact that I was about to teach one of her friends, who was moving away. She insisted that I go to this farewell party, which led to a cascade of more small-world moments. I usually don't sleep well my first night or two anywhere, but these two nights were like resting in clouds, because I was so deeply present and at peace. The time was fleeting, but stretched in the moment, and already feels so long ago. It was the key to processing the fact that I have lived an incredible life, which I continue to create. I have activated so many skills and abilities that always existed in me, dormant, since last I was here. It is so very rare to revisit sites of personal history that allowed for massive and rapid expansion, so I am utterly grateful to Lesley for unlocking this experience exactly when I needed it.

These are the part of the last piece I finished for my show that opens in August, which took me right up to the deadline and way past my body's limit. It embodies the entire point of the show, and is made of offcuts and bits that I have saved in the process of making many other pieces, with a base, mostly, of old journal pages. Since I usually make my own books, the paper was recycled from studio offcuts. I destroy my own journals because no one needs to read them, especially at this point in my history where I was coming out from under a giant restraint, starting to expand into my actual self.

This piece also uses a technique that I devised in reverse, where I took three-ply hanji, dyed and coated it several times, printed onto it, and then de-laminated it. This is a wonderful discovery because in the end, I get three sheets of hanji. One has the print (and the original heavyweight paper made the printing and transport much easier), two still have the dye but in varied ways because it can only travel so well through a multi-ply sheet, and the middle sheet has the residue of both. All three are much easier to sew than the original.

I also washed some of the entries, and with the sewing, it's safe to display my private worries because it's purely texture and color to a stranger's eye. These last several months have been such an intense time, producing so much work so fast, and I learned a lot. I'm back on the road tomorrow for the longest stretch I'll be able to do for months, and then back into the fire of more massive projects. Yay for being grown enough to know that I needed to do New York this way this time.

Printing in Tacoma at Springtide Press

For the first time, I focused my work trip to the Pacific NW to do only 1. what I had to do (certain things attached to my museum exhibit) and 2. what I wanted to do. Most of it was work, but it was work I chose. The key was letting go of the feeling that I "should" teach. I blocked myself from sabotaging my trip by asking Jessica right away if I could do a mini residency at Springtide Press.

Jessica Spring is the proprietor of Springtide Press and as another friend said, "Jessica is Queen. Full stop." She and I are not fans of the word "master" (I don't want to call her a "master printer" even though that is the easiest shorthand) but she has been steeped in letterpress printing for decades, from the midwest to the west and way beyond. She has a deep well of experience that people coming up now would never be able to get, because of how tech has transformed media. She has seen huge changes in the landscape of her field, while being in its vanguard. Years ago, she coined Daredevil Typesetting and created furniture that makes it possible to set and lock up type on curves and diagonals.

Jessica also had a long-standing collaboration with the late, great, Chandler O'Leary called Dead Feminists. It was a series of broadsides about feminists throughout history (even if they didn't call themselves that). A related project was a beautiful trade book about the project that is a fantastic teaching tool. I hadn't been able to sit down with Jessica since Chandler's death to process it, so this visit was valuable for that alone.

Jessica also makes artists' books that fully involve her impressive printing skills and collection of type and ornament. I am shocked by how affordable they are given the level of craft, which extends to her studio, her home, everything she touches.

It has been almost 10 years since my last visit to Jessica's shop, and my first time meeting Chase. She and I just missed each other in Chicago because she finished grad school at the same program I started a few months later. But we have friends in common and it was affirming to share stories and lament the loss of our program, because a big point of grad school is access to a network, and structure within an institution. We've made the best of it without that, but were reminded why it would have been easier with it intact.

Thanks to Shereen, her 36" standing kutrimmer, I could trim all of the hanji that I brought, with ease and speed. I am excited about what I get to do with these offcuts, which is the legacy of hanji: all the things Koreans figured out to do with scraps! Jessica is the best collaborator you could dream up. Extremely skilled and talented, super smart and hilarious, a whiz with type and language, with an effervescent grasp of design, color, all of it. She's one of a kind, and has committed to community building and activism through print and impeccable craft. She is a remarkable teacher and gave Pacific Lutheran College 16 years of teaching, and continues to teach in other capacities. I was in such good hands.

Here I am pretending that I locked up properly. Jessica said things to me that reminded me exactly of what I say to my students. In my head, I'm thinking, "You forgot?? How many times do I have to remind you??" and then realized that her approach makes you not feel like a total dumdum for forgetting. Because....why would someone who doesn't do this all the time or hasn't done it for years remember every last detail? Maybe if I wasn't chatting so much while printing I would have remembered (again, something else I see my students do, and now I get it).

Here is Jessica locking up properly. Everything I did privately in a letterpress shop, I could not hide from her (like not measuring anything and instead walking back and forth from the press to the furniture, guessing what I needed instead of measuring, doing the math, and taking ONE walk. It's not that I wasn't taught how, I was stubbornly making my life harder because I don't like measuring and doing arithmetic in my head. And then pretended it was about getting exercise).

She had rollers on the press that have a worm gear that enables tight bands of color in a rainbow roll that will never blend out like regular rollers eventually would. I had given her a game plan before I arrived, ditched the idea while packing the night before my flight, and didn't tell her until I got to the shop. A pro can roll with all of that. We spent the first afternoon/evening talking over ideas, deciding what to use (in this case, wood type, rule, and ornament), and setting everything up in the bed of the press.

We printed the next two days. When I arrived Sunday morning, I watched her in the middle of printing a collaborative suite: use scrubs in a bucket! They looked like a magic secret and now I know.

I decided to mostly cut my hanji in half lengthwise (a few are cut the other way), so I needed help at the press to get it off the drum because it's longer than the circumference. We figured it out eventually and insisted that her husband Tim document it. Here we are laughing because I said we had to get a shot of both of our hands on the paper at once, which happens only for a second.

After one run, we'd turn the sheets around and print the other side. I'm so glad she was there to figure out all of the math. It looks very simple but it's not to my brain, which is why this kind of work is not my main jam.

Day two of printing, we switched up ink colors and she insisted on documenting my pants with the new color combo, which was her brainchild.

The resulting prints will eventually turn into new dresses for my next solo museum show that opens this August. This was the main reason that I could not make other visits or book teaching gigs: no time! I was so impressed by what we were able to get done in such a short amount of time given how zonked I was, without a clear directive besides, Let's print onto hanji and later I'll cut it up to sew back together.

Tim kept us fed throughout, and this was one of our lunches. Gabby also visited our first full printing day, which was great fun. Congrats to her for a big recent grant!

Again, like my BIMA visit, there was so much more but it's still processing. It's a gift to get to spend meaningful time working and playing with kin. To the very end, Tim was there to transport all of my heavy stuff (getting my suitcase upstairs upon arrival, and then down the stairs and then more stairs to the car that would whisk me to the airport). Since my return, I've been in that liminal post-travel space where everything is up in the air, but it's settling down as the reality of home, car, and body repairs remind me of everything I left behind. But the photos remain!

March visit to Bainbridge Island

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art has been on my radar for years and this month I was fortunate enough to finally visit, to put finishing touches on my first solo museum exhibit, and give an artist talk to an attentive, curious, full-capacity audience. The first (and I think only) Korean astronaut was in attendance, and later I had an upbeat talk about my work with the former governor of Washington.

I was up at 4am to get ready for a morning flight, managed longer than usual TSA precheck lines, and the car got me to the ferry in time to catch it if I knew how to actually get to the boarding area. But I didn't, but it wasn't an onerous wait for the next one. The curator, Erin, picked me up after I got off the ferry and after dumping my things at the airbnb, I asked for lunch right away. After that, we went to the museum and I got to see the show for the first time as a few other folks. Erin did a fabulous job installing and there wasn't much to update but I was glad I had a few days to fiddle with it.

Concurrently was a wonderful exhibit of the large-scale concrete art of sculptor / gardener / artist duo George and David Lewis, longtime and beloved residents of the island. A lot of pieces were on loan from various collections and had to be dislodged from gardens to install in the gallery, including fountains! It's a stunning show and I was happy to meet George and David my first evening in town. On my last full day before my talk, I took a walk in the morning and on the way back, passed the museum while they were in the gallery to take care of their beautiful pomegranate and tetrapanax sculptures.

It's a wealthy island but also progressive, so I saw a lot of signs like this in the neighborhood where I stayed.

I wasn't able to interact with the owner of my airbnb because of her cold, but I know she is very involved in the arts community and of course the whole house is beautiful and full of thoughtful touches, like the green driveway. I was so comfortable in the peaceful downstairs apartment.

It wasn't since my visit to Tasmania years ago that I had been greeted with such a beautiful welcome spread, which came in handy my second night when I was too jet lagged to go out and was content to have snacks as a meal.

It was gratifying to see my books highlighted at the museum shop, and the newest addition at top is the gorgeous catalog that Laura Zander designed with so much skill and care. Special thanks to Erin for the into, Vicky Stewart for the essay, and Mina Takahashi for the interview, and to all the generous people who provided testimonials that are sprinkled throughout. Everyone who was on this project worked really hard on it, including my photographer of 20+ years, Stefan.

That's just a few gallery shots and I was likely too discombobulated to do very good ones, which is why it's good that the museum has people for that! But you can see more, including a video walkthrough, here.

This is from a walk I took the morning of my artist talk, when things were mostly done and I could breathe a bit, heading to the post office to mail catalogs, happy to feel like I could walk after my steroid injection a week or so prior. I was amazed by how little pain I felt on this entire trip, but it's because I was treated so well, reunited with dear friends, and relieved that something I had worked on for years had come to fruition in an ideal way. There is so much I could share but it's all still processing, so all I can say is that this trip filled and overflowed my heart. Thanks to BIMA, Cynthia Sears, Erin Zona, Catherine Alice Michaelis, and the many more people who make all of this, and more, possible.