January

Far from needing a wake-up call, the world of hand papermaking ever since its mid-20th century renaissance has been in an ebullient and transforming mode. Originally inspired by the early and solitary artistic investigations of Douglass Howell, an ever growing number of artists in the intervening decades have contributed to the development of paper pulp as an art medium, thereby adding their distinctive voices.


“Let the drums roll out. Let the trumpet call.
While the people shout. ‘Strike up the band’ “

From “Strike up the Band” by George and Ira Gershwin


The disaffected might venture that paper has stepped out of line, has gotten noisy and so, in a manner of speaking, it has. The point is that the active role of paper in the arts continues to broaden and this tendency, with or without a trumpet call, seems to be exactly right.

– Laurence Barker