Festival aftermath

I completely forgot to tell everyone about the Cleveland Asian Festival that just happened this past weekend. I'm officially in the time of my life where I only realize after life events happen that they have happened. We saw lots of mascots at the festival, but only one came over to help us beat fiber!

The mayor also came by our booth and seemed to have a similar reaction to most people who came by our booth, shocked by how much work goes into papermaking. I think I scared some people because of how much labor was involved (and we only had a few of the steps in the demo—beating, picking, scraping, sheet formation, and couching. We didn't even show pressing, parting, drying, cooking, harvesting, stripping...). One woman said, "This must be your passion. No, more than a passion!" Another man said, "I'm really overwhelmed right now." I'm pretty sure lots of people walked away convinced that I was insane. But at least we had a nice weather day on Sunday, a respite from Saturday's cold, wind, and rain. I ate way too much festival food, but that can't be helped.

An article I wrote for Another Escape has finally come out in print! Here is the new issue (scroll down for a peek at the images for it).