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.