Banff Recollections

I've been enjoying my holiday break, catching up on some studio projects and starting a few new ones. The piece above is an in-process shot of the center panel of a print triptych I'm working on, based on my experience at Banff for the Dard Hunter Conference. The final piece will be a series of reduction linoleum blocks on handmade paper with pulp paint - the blue in the image above is actually a pulp paint stencil.

As the print progresses, I find myself remembering not only the mountains there, but the studios as well, and the integration between inside and outside as an artist's space.

All the studios at Banff either have skylights or large windows that look out towards the mountains. Even the studios for individual artists. It was so bright that the view from the windows in this pictures is overexposed, but the mountains are there.

The print shop is divided into multiple rooms. Below, the screen print area:

The screen print area is part of a long room that also houses the etching area, divided by some enclosed rooms for screen exposure and for acid. Along one side are windows that bring the light and mountains in.

I loved this guide to their ink colors:

A door in the etching area leads to the litho room:

Passing through the litho room leads to letterpress:

Next to letterpress is a clean room that can serve as a bindery or print curating space, which I neglected to photograph. Off of that room is the digital printshop - please excuse the slight blurriness.

The paper studio is in the basement. Radha Pandey was doing an Islamic papermaking demo during the tour, I'll dedicate a post to that soon.

The beater room.

The studio building is built into the side of the mountain. In the paper studio, there is still one wall of windows, but on the other side of the room, the mountain literally comes into the studio.

Raw fibers, half stuff, linters, and odds and ends on the wall of the paper studio:

The print and paper studios are coordinated by Wendy Tokaryk, whose work I was fortunate to see while in Banff.

This is just the studios I saw. The entire three days was so full of energy and revelation, it would be too long a post, so I will have to share the rest in other posts.

Paper in Action - Peace Lantern Festival

I was a late arrival to last night's Bay Area Peace Lantern Ceremony, held on the 69yth anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. These photos aren't the greatest, shot only with my phone. However, it's always exciting to see paper-based community events! (Ok, and with my boat obsession, FLOATING PAPER!!!)

I was working on a grant application recently, writing about how my studio work as a papermaker is this act of standing up against hegemony. It struck me that to most people, paper is this ubiquitous thing, easily discarded or recycled, and yet that most people intuitively understand that it has a certain delicacy. Due to the choices to make something by hand, to manipulate something that is fragile and easily destroyed, the incredible time commitment of it all, that this take on it might be a little hard to understand.

To me, it is this response to and affect on light where the art of paper gets its power. These lanterns were made of rather cheap drawing paper, but when illuminated and floated on the water, the viewing experience is transformative. Their power comes from their delicate simplicity. It conveys a quietude that invites a viewer to pause, to catch their breathe, to feel a sense of awe.

In the context of last night, it was all that was needed.