Dreams come true: Hanji Madang @ Penland, 2026

I'm a little over a week back home after the most fulfilling experience of recent memory, years in the making: my first hanji summit! Myong set up this perfect photo on our first night, after lots of stressful travel that was affected by severe storms in the northeast (L to R: Steph, Esther, Justine, me, Lisa, Minji, Myong). Thankfully, we all made it. This is after we opened the package from Korea with tool and hanji orders and grabbed whatever for props. We hadn't made anything yet except building the foundation of this beautiful sisterhood.

It feels nearly impossible to write about it because it was so deeply moving, healing, and necessary. We had gone through a lot of ups and downs to get to this point, and things looked different from the way I had originally envisioned it. In the end, it turned out exactly the way it needed to be. I had flown with two kilos of magnificent dak fiber from Korea, which we got from Uiryeong at Shin Hyun Se Traditional Hanji.

It was so satisfying to work with such high quality fiber; it barely required cleaning and was so shiny and luminous after cooking. I had done this alone many years ago but it was much more joyful to share with everyone else. We had talked about using other fibers ahead of arrived but in the end used this, Korean fiber that Lisa brought from Jeonju, and Florida fiber from Amy. Rather that use easy to source fiber, this was the ideal setting to use the best that we could find, closest to the heart of hanji. We were so grateful to Mr. Shin for letting us buy from his stash.

Every step required figuring out how to configure the studio to best support the task and our bodies. I was surprised that the beating implements were not up to snuff, and already had designs months in advance to become friendly with Chelsea, as the wood studio would be vital to our ability to sort out tools. Thank goodness they were 100% amenable from the very beginning, and immediately took a tracing of the prototype I had brought. Immediately, they knocked out two beautiful pairs of maple beaters (not in time for this first round of beating, but excellent for subsequent batches).

 

Years ago, I had taught hanji making at Penland twice, but only modified style accompanied by allied techniques. They invited me repeatedly to return but I was unhappy with the dearth of infrastructure for hanji making and did what I have the luxury of doing: referred out former students / mentees. Steph did so admirably a couple years back, which meant that Penland had one hanji vat (based on her design, which is based off of mine, which Andy also created a version of). Fortunately, studio coordinator Beth was happy to build a second vat before we arrived, and this one is based on a design that Steph and Jeff worked on this year, which will eventually be shared (I have long wanted a location for this kind of info and now have a critical mass of people with the shared talents to make it happen!). We measured what we needed height-wise and Beth built us risers before the liner went on.

[photo by Steph] When I had my original hanji summit idea, only a few of my former students were interested. Maybe it's because my vision was too blurry, it was simply a feeling of wanting to gather people I've worked with in the past who are clearly dedicated to sharing hanji in their own ways, to meet each other. They each knew me, but did not necessarily know each other. I had a back and forth with Justine, where I made a list of potential activities and told her, I don't want lectures and panels and us all sitting around watching presentations. She said, then don't put those things on the list! Because of how ingrained systems are, I automatically thought that summit = boring gathering in a sleepy dark room. Penland was one of the first places I approached, and they said, once your idea is more firm, come back to us. It wasn't until Veronica met Beth at a winter residency and shared my idea, that Beth said, please have her reach back out, I would love to make this happen!

Unbeknownst to me, Penland had a new invite-only visiting collective residency program for BIPOC artists, and offered me the opportunity to bring a hanji group to the papermaking studio. I had been so caught up preparing for a trip to San Francisco that I forgot completely our zoom appt and left Beth and Leslie hanging, but they were so gracious and let me reschedule a chat with Leslie the following week when I got to Cali. Beth made it clear she was willing to invest in tools from Korea and we set up an order right away. I still remember pacing the poorly-lit airbnb studio, making calls to the six artists that I wanted to include, inviting them to a fully funded, almost two-week stay, together (what other residency sends you home with a generous unrestricted grant to continue enacting the sparks that begin in the studio??). Almost two years later, I was overjoyed to capture this scene that reminded me so much of a 1933 photograph by Dard Hunter of his trip to Korea, with people performing many different steps of the hanji making process.

Being able to work in an affinity group, bound by heritage as well as material/process, is so rare, and the generosity with which everyone approached this gathering was astounding. Look at all the bal in one studio! A mix of tools shared by Penland, Steph, Lisa, Myong, and Justine. There was never any concern about damage or whose was whose, and we sorted out nuances of each tool while using them.

Early in our prep meetings, it became clear that everyone was interested in tools/toolmaking. I don't know why I was surprised, given this is such an important pillar of my research. But what I forgot is how much longer I've been in the field trying to sort things out, and how certain ideas calcify. For example, I'm only interested in bamboo processing for screens even though the species we need is not here, but other people want to experiment with precursors to bamboo that are available on this continent, which included grasses and reeds. I'm still skeptical for this as a solution to long-term, large-scale toolmaking, but as exercise and practice, it's extremely valuable. Steph brought sorghum, and from the first night everyone started to sort by diameter to prepare for weaving a screen.

I had brought a newly batch of 60 brass weaving bobbins by Emily, based on a Korean design I had brought back from Jeonju in 2021. Famously, everyone who has worked on batch/production tools for hanji in the US (scraping knives and bobbins) has done it once and then refused to continue because it's SO much work. Plus they are artists who are perfectly capable of doing it but are more committed to their own art making over batch commissions. Which I relate to! This is why I don't sell my hanji; I'm not interested in production hanji making, and have never been interested in it mostly out of the respect that I have for real production work / lack of time. I make it for my own art and when teaching.

[photo by Myong] Because I'm pulled in so many directions, it's very challenging to stay on top of disseminating my research. I have tons of years-old footage that I have not been able to share yet, and it gnaws at me constantly. Here, I finally had an outlet to share daily with people who actually cared, to whom these images were legible. The bobbins a great example of what has fallen out of my head: the one remaining Korean bal maker has leading threads tied onto all of her bobbins. I had only one example with the original tie/knot on the bobbin, and asked everyone to reverse engineer it (I need but still haven't gotten readers and bifocals). This took days, and I tried at the beginning of our stay to find the textiles teacher Amanda for advice, and was told by her assistant that someone in class had tapestry experience so I invited Mei to the studio to try and sort it out. She was looking at the knot and then I went to my computer to look for a video, only to find one of the bal maker showing how she did it.

Myong and Justine had spent the MOST time on this puzzle, and when I told them, Justine yelled, "AIMEE!!!" That was only one of so very many giant collective laughs. Truly, the amount of laughter we shared was incredible. Beth had made weaving loom prototypes and Esther sawed grooves to prepare. No doubt, preparing the loom, threading the bobbins, measuring the lines, and winding on, were the most labor intensive of the process.

Thankfully, the labor was shared, and almost everyone pitched in on this tiny bal. We had one mishap after I saw Minji work so hard on threading and setting up the second half of the screen (we went full Korean style, weaving half the screen at once, which means the second half has to go around two existing splints before you can start weaving). Minji had gotten every thread into place before the bobbins got wound on, and taped them down. After our slide talks in the second week, we opened our studio to share what we had been up to. It was mobbed, and I was across from the loom when I saw a visitor accidentally knock over the tray where Minji had painstakingly set all of the threads. I think Esther took over the next day to reset them, and helped at the end to finish the bal because we were so close to departure. Steph went twice to the woodshop to get the edgesticks made.

This entire process was an excellent example of the purpose and value of prototyping. There is no way to get around it: so many lessons learned/re-learned!

My challenge was, as always, the limits of my body. I had scheduled my surgery believing what the medical professionals told me, that I could fly and work at three months out. Even the PT at a month out said that I'd be feeling so much better at two months. But those were not accurate expectations, so when I felt not great at two months, it took forever to realize that I was still in acute recovery and not ready to do what I was doing. On top of that, a giant confluence of wonderful but demanding things happened right when I should have been 100% focused on recovery. Leslie had told me that Penland had golf carts that I could use, but I was too prideful at first. I went from mile walks on flat Ohio land to hiking to the studio and house multiple times a day, thinking it would be built-in PT. Instead, by the second day, my nonsurgical hip went out and I was in awful pain. I asked someone to request the cart, which arrived the next morning, and Esther took on full driving duties for the duration. She took me to every meal, naptime, laundry, and early turn ins when I couldn't stay in the studio any later. No surprise, she fell ill the last day and it blew up once she got home. But I am so thankful to her, and everyone else, for taking such good care of me.

I forget all the time that the skills I have been building are not restricted to the studio. When I selected and refined this group, I was looking at all the big and small ways that each individual would benefit the whole. Everyone had a different set of talents, personality, and approach. When considering all of the people I had met through my Hanji Retreats and beyond, I knew that I wanted Myong on board. She proved to be crucial in creating group harmony and a framework to enter the space (she even marked the tree outside our house, and really took to heart what a madang is). She built solidarity among us but also all of the circles outward, as we inhabited in a larger space. She was the only one to bring a car, and prepared all kinds of things: Korean food, self-care items, and an entire set of Korean drums. Twice, she led drumming sessions for everyone on campus, which was a whole other level of generosity than I think anyone could have anticipated.

Lisa worked on kapa making at first, though shifted to wonderful dyed bark lattice and cyanotype as she sorted out the best way to use the Korean fibers. She also brought her drum from Hawai'i, which we used often in the studio to calm and steady our hearts. Her dyestuffs from Korea were also shared completely with no bounds, and led to stunning colors and unexpected results. We were able to compare Korean and Japanese persimmon juice, and it was a joy to be able to run experiments that are possible at home alone but so much more fun in community.

[photo by Esther] I tried to process my sorrow, or what I later realized was grief, around my inability to work the way I am used to, by doing one giant tedious task for most of the time: make hanji yarn for a book edition. Again, a task wholly possible to do at home alone, but MUCH more fun to do alongside everyone else in the studio. Esther taped an orange boundary around my bench so that I wouldn't get up and try to do other things (my left hip got better after the golf cart, but then my right foot went out in a very new and weird way). I would sit doing this while yelling over to everyone working differently from how I would have. No one let me lift heavy, and after a while quietly banned me from more intensive parts of the hanji making process, including cleaning. I could only make a little bit of hanji before my foot made it clear that full consecutive days of standing on concrete was not acceptable. I was extremely sad about this but in the end very happy that I made a shit ton of yarn, enough to hopefully finish the edition plus a commission.

Watching everyone fulfill years-long dreams was heart exploding. Justine, in her quiet methodical way, processed ALL of the milkweed fiber that she had harvested over years and saved. She had learned from beating milkweed at my old studio that it makes a mess, so she'd went outside to beat it and worked as much as she could before the rain started, to create batches of hanji in shades of fall, deeper fall, and deepest fall. This was something I did nine years ago, and she had seen the results when we first met four years ago.

She went even further and processed her coma fiber ALSO for the hanji vat. I have seen various versions of beating coma fiber in Howie Clark and Valley beaters, but not a Reina. I was very worried that this batch would turn out like Esther's and Veronica's styrofoam paper, but Justine was brave and did a bunch of beater tests before dumping it into the hanji vat! I was so happy that Steph was in the group, since she is the only other person besides me trained classically in European style papermaking + knew all of the equipment in the shop, so I could stay within my taped border while she guided Justine through the process. Because Steph and I have only been together in settings that didn't involve the ability to lift 50 lbs and more, I had no sense of her strength. She went into mama bear mode when scolding me to stop lifting and moving boards. We are all still waiting to see Justine's photos (there are VERY funny ones in her batch), but she gave an incredible slide talk with the most beautiful images of her milkweed process.

Esther was very focused on making a billion cords for jiseung (I remember those days!!) but once we set up dyes, became extremely excited about dunking all of her cords. She and Minji also helped harvest black walnut husks from one of the paths up to the studio where I noticed them, back when I was still on foot.

[photo by Minji] Here are a few of MANY of Esther's dye tests. She also worked with Steph on preparing a tutorial for Steph's hanji book that will be published in a couple of years. Steph conducted individual interviews with each of us, an unexpectedly beautiful way to process what were doing and how we had all ended up here.

Anywhere there is dak, there is bark lace! Myong cast these stones with variously dyed dak. Her original tiny cast bark forms were the pieces I fell in love with when I first met her a couple years ago.

Myong also had the energy and foresight to unlock many other studios. She printed in the letterpress studio, and there was also running back and forth to the photo studio upstairs after a coordinator mentioned leftover cyanotype chemicals. Of course, we also befriended Jun, who was teaching a woodcut concentration in the printmaking shop connected to letterpress. So much reciprocal Korean snack and food sharing!!

Once the pre-reduced indigo vat was up, Myong also dyed fiber to prepare for sheet formation. Since Steph had ordered a bunch of smaller bal, it was easy to test in a smaller vat instead of worrying about filling the large ones.

In the spirit of activating the madang, we signed a set of prints that Myong made to share with each other. This overview is not even close to complete, and only the seven of us will ever really know what we experienced, but trust that it was completely life and vision affirming. We bonded profoundly, with zero drama, and were very sad to part. I cried at the airport on the way there as we texted each other updates on our flights, because we were finally enacting this great converging of Korean diasporic women upon the mountains of North Carolina. My goal has always been to pass hanji legacy into multiple bodies, to share the joys and burdens of this labor, to bring us further than we've ever been. It's very hard to return to regular life after that, but we'll always have this touchstone, and it's only the beginning.