What a Friday

1st stop: Robbin's studio. Asao and I both got mosquito bites. Lots of figuring out the setup for class, and for festivities. Plus catching up. I never get to see enough of her!

2nd stop (after a long walk): Carriage House. To pick up supplies and catch up with Shannon, who was sporting new battle wounds from derby last night. [Above: "silk paper"]

3rd stop: connected to Carriage House is the International Paper Museum. This is some pineapple paper toilet paper by Asao. Sunny day, so the light was beautiful.

4th stop: Lunch at the Met with Yukari. Then, a wonderful tour of the conservation dept of the Watson Library (mind you: conservation for the books of the library, not for artwork). She said they like the hanji very much that Mr. Shin makes and that one of the uses of the heavier hanji is to make labels that are printed on an Epson and pasted onto books, magazines, etc.

They worked hard to design every last bit of the place, which was newly renovated, and this is their gorgeous drying rack (latticework on all sides for air circulation even when the cabinet door is closed, and many many racks like this. Plus this part is on top of slate, though the rest of the floor is cork. Their mats are SO cushy and luxurious.

These chairs are so genius and I want one so badly. Your legs go on either side of the cross, arms hang over both sides, torso supported as you lean forward and do the hard work. BRILLIANT.

They like the hanji! Regular and multi (or no) grain. I was so thankful to also get to spend time with Mindy Dubansky, who loves gardening, fresh air, and books. She is working on a book now that sounds like it will be a beauty, and knows my publisher. We got to look at lots of her handmade paper stashes. It was like dumping out a plastic pumpkin at the end of a Halloween night.

5th stop: CBA, to get Asao ready for his talk. 6th stop: the food court in Koreatown, for what he called an appetizer (sushi--he had wanted this for a while). 7th stop: back to CBA to give the talk. I got to meet Linda and April, catch up with Barbara (funny enough, when Asao and I took the bus downtown from the Met, we saw Barbara at a stop about to get onto our bus but then she stayed off to wait for a less crowded one. We waved as we passed and she saw us), and drink a tiny bit of wine.

8th stop, long overdue: bed!