Catch up

I've gotten almost caught up. I just need to type out my field notes, which I've been putting off for days now. I found this image hilarious: a print of wood skirting a real pile of wood. This papermill is barely visible when you see it from the street b/c there are piles and piles of scrap wood in front of it, used for the fires to cook and dry paper.

I also loved this big random radish under the paper stands. Here are pics from the rival papermill in Wonju (not as many; by then I was so tired that I just shot a few and called it a shoot). From what I gather, I think the first one makes higher quality paper, but I haven't gotten a chance to compare the actual paper.

This was from a bark scraping demo at the Paper Road paper exchange event on Friday at the National Palace Museum, part of the Silk Road Cultural Festival, which was celebrating the cultures of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

I loved this mould and screen used for Samarkand paper. The formation is western, but using a more eastern screen. The mould is notched so that the screen fits inside it perfectly. The papermaker from Uzbekistan, Zarif Muhtorov, seemed happy to be there. Korea's representative papermaker was Jang Yong Hoon, an intangible heritage practitioner, who has been training his son, Jang Sung Woo, to be the fourth generation papermaker in the family. They have a shop in Seoul called Jang Ji Bang and a mill about an hour and a half from Seoul. I'm hoping to visit them next week.

Meanwhile, I seem to be playing with dryer lint. Only, remember, there are no dryers here! This is all hanji that I've been ripping apart as homework. Luckily, I didn't have to have it done since I didn't meet the teacher who is going to show me the next step today. Instead, I slept in, went to the dentist, and had a really nice afternoon in the studio. FINALLY. Once I do a mailing on Monday, I'll be caught up on a lot of studio work, which is a relief.

Tomorrow is a day-long workshop. I have no idea what it's on, but I suspect it's for watermarking. I made a nice hot veggie dinner for myself tonight, which is I think my FIRST since I've arrived in Korea. I'll miss living in the lap of luxury once I move next month, but am hoping all this moving practice keeps me adept at adapting.

Frankly, I'm tired of all the hanji pictures, in case you thought I wasn't. They all look the same. I was going to try and visit all the mills left in Korea before the year's end, but now that I'm about halfway through, I don't think I need to, b/c it's all the same. My dad reminded me, "learn things you don't know, not things you already know." Rehashing is pretty exhausting, so even though I'm terrified of all things new, I know it's inevitable.