Guest Editor for the Winter 2023 Hand Papermaking Issue, 🌿 Ecology and Paper 🌿
I'm very, very honored to be the guest editor for Hand Papermaking magazine's Winter 2023 issue 🌿🌿🌿 Ecology and Paper 🌿🌿🌿.
It's a beautiful, full-color, 9 x 12 inch, scholarly publication with REAL handmade paper samples in it.
This issue shows how papermaking is in a unique position to address the degradation of the planet and contribute to a future that values and re-integrates all of nature and humanity.
“Handmade paper can go beyond creative self-expression to be a reminder of how to live respectfully, learn together, and be creative in a way that is ecologically and socially beneficial.” – May Babcock
Cover image: Hannah Chalew, Pipelandia, 2021, 48 x 30 x 30 inches, metal, sugarcane, plastic, lime, recycled paint, living plants, soil, paper made from sugarcane combined with shredded disposable plastic waste (“plasticane”), iron oak gall ink, ink made from shells. Photo: Jonathan Traviesa. Courtesy of Hannah Chalew.
Inside the issue:
Hannah Chalew's work based on Louisiana’s floating marshes graces the cover, and inside, a “plasticane” (sugarcane and plastic waste) paper sample.
Artist Sheila Nakitende's innovations with regenerative Ugandan bark-paper.
Mikayla Patton, who repurposes outdated books about indigenous nations for compelling artworks that reconnect with Lakota cultural practices
Traditional bamboo papermaking in the Dao Đỏ community in Việt Nam, written by Veronica Pham.
Mary Hark / The Ghana Paper Project’s work with ecosocial enterprise in Ghana that nurtures new papermakers, along with a paper sample and a preview of an illustrated papermaking training manual.
Advancements in mushroom paper by Tanja Major, featured in the Haus des Papiers museum in Germany, written by Katharina Grosch.
A sweeping overview of Taiwan’s papermaking journey through local fibers, from colonization to adaptation, in an essay by Yang Wei-Lin.
How human rights, the United Nations, and sustainability intersect in Brazilian artist Otávio Roth’s work, and are continued by his daughter Isabel Roth.
An exhibition at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts that expands the definition of paper arts by reconnecting distinct bark-paper traditions, reviewed by Juleana Enright.