Books to the end

One of the last flats of dry paper from our last day of papermaking. They went through TONS of pulp.

I sent my students to the basement of the Conservatory so that we could combine classes and Abby led them through hooking up the embedded paper wires to create speakers and so on.

You could hear the sound of fingers rubbing on the surface of the paper when hooked up to a small amplifier.

After the long weekend, we piled into a library classroom and went to town making books.

Despite one feeling of worry that they didn't have enough paper, there was the reality, which was the feeling of being overwhelmed by their stashes.

We made paper nails for our side-stitched bindings (hammered flat by an actual hammer).

It seemed this group was more interested than past years in their visit to see artists' books in the art library collection. One is paging through my book and the other two are trying to decipher Xu Bing's square word calligraphy (English built like Chinese).

Today was a visit upstairs to special collections in the main library. Ed (standing) and Gena (along the wall) are instrumental in making this class run smoothly and support us astoundingly well.

Selections of books and covers that came out from under weights from the previous day.

And even people who didn't take my class enjoyed the papermaking! I still have to do lots of list and photo inventory of the new studio, and even managed to pulp a bunch of slippery elm this week. It's amazing how quickly the time goes: after this rainy weekend, we'll have only two days left to finish up another structure or two, make thank you cards, and install our annual show.

In the meantime, anyone interested in using objects/making at small liberal arts colleges? I'll be in the paper studio during a March symposium at Oberlin and look forward to meeting librarians and scholars interested in hands-on learning.