MCBA/Jerome Foundation fellowships

It's been so beastly cold lately (-11 this morning) that I think I've only left the house in the last week for food, work-related activities and the celebration of Jody Williams' award. I did pick up some new Chiyogami at Wet Paint and hope to make some boxes this week to sell at MCBA's shop.

Yesterday, MCBA sent out an email reminder that the February round table was last night and that it would be focused on presentations from the five MCBA/Jerome Foundation fellows for this year. Every other year, the Jerome Foundation partners with MCBA to provide grants for emerging Minnesota book artists. (In the off years, Jerome and MCBA partner to provide funding for book arts mentorships, an effort to encourage artists working in other media to learn more about book arts.)
About 14 people braved the cold last night to hear these artists talk about their past work and the process they are following to create their new work, funded by the fellowship. There are four projects and five fellows. Regula Russelle and CB Sherlock (who couldn't make the round table) are partnering on a public art project called "Sidewalk Folios." Four Twin City neighborhoods will be chosen and each will have five simple boxes (much like the "take-one" boxes of pamphlets on coffee house bulletin boards) of letter-press printed poetry available. The individual can find one poem on its own, or all five and create a "book" from these free and unexpected gems. These letterpress poems move from their usual home in the studio or gallery to the street, and hopefully become less "precious" because they become available to anybody.
I've known Regula for years (we took our first box class together in the old MCBA building) and I always find her inspiring. She and CB have produced some lovely books together and even though they work hard to make them price-accessible, they are not inexpensive. Moving from fine letterpress to public art is a huge leap for the two of them, but one that I'm very excited to see.
I didn't know the other three artists, and that made their presentations even more interesting to me. It was fascinating to hear their process (often very intuitive and totally non-linear). And the group assembled had great suggestions for next steps, or constructive feedback on particular obstacles that the artist was struggling with.
These grants and the roundtable are another reminder to me of how strong our cities' artist communities are. Of course, we can complain that they should be stronger but these five artists have all been encouraged to take a big step forward in their work thanks to MCBA and the Jerome Foundation.

Paper Bliss

I’ve been busy in the basement for the last few days. Thursday night I idly checked Craig’s List for flat files and found two at an amazing price, “available to the first person who comes to pick them up.” My very kind neighbor (also known as DPL) was happy to drive his van over the next morning and help me haul the files up a steep set of stairs and then wrestle them down my own basement steps. They have been just the inspiration I needed to continue with the cleaning I’d started downstairs. Here’s a shot of the workbench, possibly the first time it’s been clear of junk since I moved into the house six years ago. (And it’s a very cool workbench… probably built in the 1930’s.)


What is it about getting things in the right place that is so ultimately relaxing? I always feel such a deep sense of calm after a session like this. It’s like an annoying noise that I didn’t even know was there has gone away and I can hear everything else so much more clearly. It’s more fun to be in the space and creative work is so much easier.
And now the flat files. I got up the morning after the files got into place and brought a good cup of coffee to the studio for the delicious process of sorting my paper into the appropriate drawers. (The larger file is big enough to hold my Japanese papers without folding them!) For years I used cardboard portfolios stacked flat on a card table…which meant I had no real idea of what I owned because the whole stack was too heavy to lift, much less see what was in the folders. I’ve decided to sort them by type of paper (I was thinking about sorting by color)…such bliss to open a drawer and see all the lokta prints in one place and the lovely moriki in another.

At the same time, there has been a bit of a reckoning as I sort. Paper is the one place where I over-indulge and seeing all of the paper I own in one place has made me gulp a bit. It does feel like there might be too much.
I don’t feel too concerned about the Japanese paper. Since first finding the beautiful Katazome papers of the Japanese Paper Place and discovering how lovely they are to use in boxmaking, I’ve worried that they may disappear or become less available. The number of people in Japan who make these hand screened marvels are getting fewer and fewer simply because the technique is so labor intensive and the demand is small. When a new pattern shows up and it resonates with me, I’ll bring it home. I know it may not be back again.
As for the rest, I remember many days when I was so stressed over my job that a trip to Wet Paint was the highlight of my week and it felt like there might be the possibility of happiness in the purchase of a new sheet of paper. So I look at these sheets kindly but also with the sense that their purpose may be outdated. They were bought with a hunger for something richer in my life…and the good news is that I’m no longer in a place where paper has to carry my hope for happiness!
As a result I’m thinking about a garage sale for my excess paper purchases. Maybe 3 hours on a Saturday morning in September? If you live in the Twin Cities and love paper, watch this space for some great deals!

Paper purchases

Since my class at Penland where we created our own visual images for our books, I've been trying to stay away from the Twin Cities' five (5!) strong paper stores. But sometimes you just have to go visit your favorite shop for inspiration. Wet Paint has a new stock of swirl printed loktas on hand. The swirl pattern is a little kooky and the lokta colors are really great...not pastel-y but a wonderful orange, sage green, etc. And lokta is my second favorite paper to glue.
A new store has opened in Minneapolis called PaperGami. They say that they're the largest importer of Japanese paper in the country, but I find that most of their chiyogami has that plastic-like feel. Still I stick my head in occasionally because they also carry a small amount of katazome (however my heart will always belong to Japanese Paper Place). The small orange and green oval patterned paper came from PaperGami but is a machine made text weight paper. I'll try gluing a small sample before using it for a bigger project.