Drew brings Peace Paper to Oberlin

So as not to be a total downer lately with posts, here is a bit from early October, when I visited Oberlin to see Drew Matott. We overlapped one year in grad school (2005–2006) and then I didn't see him again until 2012 when he zipped into the tail end of a papermaking conference in Cleveland. 12 years later, we are middle aged and embedded into our own papermaking trajectories that look so obvious now in hindsight but required years of ups, downs, running around, very hard work, and finding the right partners in crime. I was so glad to witness how he frames his story, as it is so necessarily incomplete when I explain his work to my students. Now I can fill in more, and Oberlin owns more of his archive so the story goes hand in hand with the artifacts.

I loved seeing my old and soon to be new students together with him, and always enjoy seeing fellow papermakers teach what I do, because you always learn something new in a turn of phrase or approach to technique transmission. Plus, I wanted more pictures of a Lee McDonald Oracle in action. And, of course, it was so helpful to have him visit the paper studio on campus to help advise on a few things. I have been on the road for days and too worn out from that to do a full recap but you can see pictures here. It was a great way to spend the weekend at my dearest alma mater.

More losses: RIP Michael Bixler and Helmut Becker

Not long after I heard about losing Serge, I was stunned to hear about the passing of Michael Bixler. We only met once in2010, and while his work was centered in printing and type casting and design, my interaction with him was through his building of one of the first American hanji vats (made for Lynn Amlie when she taught at Wells—another RIP!!). I wish I knew where that vat was now. Here are very cursory bits of my passing interactions with him and Winnie, and his obituary.

I feel like I was still such a baby then, all of these images are from almost exactly 14 years ago.

Soon after that news, we lost an unparalleled papermaking giant, Helmut Becker. I failed to meet him in Canada over the last years of my research but always knew of him as a generous, community-minded paper person with a giant wealth of experience and information, especially around his deep research and practice with flax. I am in touch with his family to try and glean enough info to do him justice in my book, since he also made beaters in his wide-ranging career, but if you have any images or stories that you are willing to share, please let me know.