Final post with my original skeleton! If we don't count teeth in that. Surgery is on Wed, total hip replacement. Prior to that, I insanely scheduled myself to the hilt in a way that was unwise and yet I really felt there was no other way to squeeze out all I could from this joint. After my trip to NY, I immediately prepped for a NYT shoot. This is the aftermath of it, 12 hours later, when I had taken my drying setup outside to grab the last tendrils of the sun. Thank goodness we were in long days!
The next morning was my interview, and then that evening
Joko flew in to assist me for three intense weeks of teaching three different groups. My first group was a dream, gelling from the start, and being extremely patient and hardworking through serious swampy summer weather.
I had made two new
aprons and they were a hit!
This was the first time I had a beautifully-trained and experienced assistant who could take on teaching duties. Joko took care of ssangbal instruction and vats in the back room and I loved watching her teaching approach. She tells people I was her first papermaking teacher but she really has done so much of it on her own, learning from all kinds of people everywhere and practicing it back home in Puerto Rico.
The first group made the most paper, and we for sure had to get into the showers again, even with the big new drying walls!
It was also a comfort to be able to completely trust and rely on Joko to do things like grade and sort our socialist paper.
The fantastic thing about using the Oberlin paper studio is that we were able to take field trips during lunch to the museum, art library, and main library. This is a Korean book I got in a shop in Seoul for special collections at Oberlin, likely a practice book, nothing special, but fun to use the new flat backlight for viewing.
The only downside to Joko always being three steps ahead of me and doing herculean assisting is that she got very little time at the vat. I did sneak her in for some agitation and one bit of sheet forming.
Second week was my Korean diaspora group—which happens by chance every time. I was so happy to meet people who had been referred by past students, and loved how game they were for everything. The weather had abated, thank goodness, and this one day we needed to press the post but I was unwilling to open the press wider to fit everything in. I told Tori to throw their body onto the whole stack to try and compress it by about a half inch, inch max. I have done this before but in the moment didn't have my apron and boots on so I couldn't directly demo it. It worked!
This group also made enough paper that we had to maximize the drying walls and pour into the shower stalls. Here are photos from
week 1, and
week 2.
Oh, of course by the end of week one, I got terribly sick, which rarely happens to me. The same day, my phone up and died but I was too sick to get a new one until the day before the next class began. I started to get better but then the virus boomeranged back and hit me right before the third class started. By then, Joko and I had moved ourselves and studio equipment from Oberlin back east.
The final week was to teach Korean papermaking and paper crafts to the inaugural cohort of the Morgan professional
certificate program. Hours were really intense but fortunately the weather held and mosquitoes are no longer reigning in the studio. I was glad to be able to bring the entire group to a point where they could start a post and get going on their own, so that they would be prepared to work without me. Joko here is teaching them about grading/curating sheets.
By the end, novices had transformed into people who looked like they worked in a hanji mill, getting boards ready for parted sheets, and ready to prep fiber for independent hanji making. So exciting to see the hard work move right into practice. That week,
a great story about my work dropped via Oberlin.
Then I had to roll immediately into getting my home studio ready for the Kent State University Museum staff to come the next morning after class ended to pack and take away about 50 pieces of my art for my
upcoming solo show. I had a window of exactly one day, so they accommodated me, even though they had all worked so hard getting a different exhibit up and opened the previous night! I thought I was stressed, but they were so professional and efficient.
So glad to know about these McMaster-Carr bags, though once they were done, the walls were so barren that the room was echoing. It felt like I was moving out! But truly, after working so hard to produce enough inventory, I was relieved to have it safely delivered to the museum. This is another group I trust completely and am excited to see how they design the exhibit. See you on the other side of surgery!
