Skye Tafoya is an indigenous artist from the eastern band cherokee and santa clara pueblo tribes. Her tribal heritage and lineage are significant components that are continuously present within her artwork. Tafoya comes from a lineage of basket-weavers, both paternal and maternal, and also used to make red willow baskets with her dad, and she continues to use paper-weaving processes to honor her loved ones and ancestors. Her meticulously crafted designs, patterns, prints, and weavings are influenced by basketry and contain themes of cultural teachings, cherokee language preservation, motherhood and personal & family narratives. Tafoya creates with the intention of archiving, preserving and sharing stories, language, culture, and experiences. 

Joyce Gold is a Denver, Colorado artist who pushes the boundaries of traditional papermaking to create works in paper that are new and innovative. Her work is said to “punctuate the depth and breadth of papermaking.” Joyce uses various plant fibers with assorted papermaking techniques and markings to accentuate her work, and her love of the papermaking process piques her curiosity and leads to new discoveries. Gold’s work has been widely exhibited; she is the recipient of awards from D’Art Gallery, Arnold Grummers, and the Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory; and her work has been featured in Fiber Art Now magazine. 

Julie McGlaughlin has been making paper and exploring its sculptural possibilities since the early 90’s. She has been making large sheets from Kozo fibers for the last 14 years. Her interest in wearable paper garments subconsciously began over 50 years ago when she wore her first paper dress (popular in the 1960’s) and she continues to push the boundaries between paper and textiles today. Eastern fibers work well for this, as they are extremely strong allowing her to make thin, fluid sheets which easily adapt to wearable art. These non-woven sheets are referred to as kamikogami.  McGlaughlin shows her sculptural work and wearable paper garments nationally and internationally, and her work is in numerous private and corporate collections.

Melissa Jay Craig is a Chicago artist. In this episode, she explains how her first artist’s residency coincided with having just learned about papermaking, and how instead of lugging 400 books to the residency to create the type of work she had been making, she took just two books and some kozo fiber and was able to cast paper-shaped books instead. We discuss a nomadic artistic life comprised of a period in which she traveled around the country doing residencies and teaching gigs. And we touch on one of her works, S/Edition, that ended up going viral by being featured on This is Colossal. Continue reading Melissa Jay Craig

Matt Simpson is founder and CEO of Green Banana Paper in Micronesia. We talk about how Matt ended up on this remote island as a teacher, his desire to stay there and surf, and how he put two and two together when he realized that all of his students were leaving the island to find work and that the banana fiber that had been used to make clothing in the distant past could also be made into paper. Listen to how Green Banana Paper creates jobs through sustainable practices on the tiny island of Kosrae, with a people population of 6000 and a banana tree population of 250,000. It’s fascinating! Continue reading Matt Simpson

Through her practice, which includes art making, writing, curating and teaching, Melissa Potter focuses on traditions that are endangered, underpaid and under-recognized due to industrialization, war, gender bias, and globalization. In this episode, we discuss her Quaker upbringing in New Jersey that instilled her desire to be an activist, how she has expanded upon The Papermaker’s Garden (that I initiated at Dieu Donné Papermill in the mid 90’s) and has continued to develop it as a socially engaged practice. We also discuss her career path – as an advocate for artists at the New York Foundation for the Arts, her work through the Fulbright Program to build paper studios at the University of Serbia and the University of Sarajevo and her current position as Associate Professor of Art & Art History at Columbia College Chicago, where some of her goals are to give students who may never have access to a papermaking studio after college a transformative experience and to document the legacy of hand papermaking as a craft form in the United States. Continue reading Melissa Potter

In this episode, Tom Leech tells us about his early memory of the smell of paper, when his missionary aunt sent him toys from Japan wrapped in Japanese paper; his first experience with papermaking when he studied sculpture and printmaking with Winifred Lutz; and how his interest in environmentalism led him to make recycled paper at 18,000 feet on Mt. Everest. He also tells us about reintroducing monks at a monastery in Tibet to hand papermaking and how the word ‘recycled’ wasn’t translatable so the closest they could come was to call it reincarnated paper. At that point, everyone at the monastery was interested! Continue reading Tom Leech

Today I’m talking with husband and wife Pat Gentenaar Torley & Peter Gentenaar in the town of Delft in The Netherlands. Peter & Pat met in the late 60’s at the California College of Arts & Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in Oakland and settled in the Netherlands shortly afterwards. Peter talks about how the struggle to make three dimensional prints led him to envision making his own paper, and how an introduction to commercial papermaking at the Royal Dutch Paper Factory got him started. Pat talks about how studying fiber arts at CCA with well-known fiber artist Trude Gueromonprez ultimately led her to creating pulp paintings before there was even a name for the technique. We discuss how they navigated the financial support system for Dutch artists, raised two daughters, and restored the historic farmhouse where they still live and work. Continue reading Pat & Peter Gentenaar

In this episode, Mina Takahashi reveals how a college internship in Philadelphia planted the seed for her career in hand papermaking, she talks about a key moment when a Japanese papermaker showed her his hands and she understood what it means to dedicate yourself to a process, material and way of life, and she discusses her visit to a Thai village where they made hospital gowns out of handmade paper. We also talk about her work as an advocate and promoter for hand papermaking as an artistic medium as director of Dieu Donne Papermill and her current position as editor of Hand Papermaking Magazine. Continue reading Mina Takahashi

In this episode, Sue Gosin discusses her childhood in a commercial papermaking family and her desire to get away from paper. But she saw paper in a new light during her college years at the university of Madison and shortly afterwards moved to NYC to start a paper studio in a loft in Soho in 1976. She tells the story of how the mill almost fell through the floor when they first turned on the Hollander beater and how she met the painter Howard Hodgkin when he walked into her bathroom. We talk about how young the field of hand papermaking was when she started and how she had to find rags in the garment district, research chemicals to come up with the proper pigments for coloring pulp and commissioned a press that looked like a tinker toy compared to the other equipment in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Sue’s journey ends with a glimpse of the show she is currently co-curating with Mina Takahashi at the International Print Center New York, which will tell the story of how hand papermaking has been revolutionized from a craft into an art form. Continue reading Susan Gosin

Priscilla Robinson is an artist who divides her time between studios in Austin, Texas and Taos, New Mexico. In the early 1980’s she began working with handmade paper, when she was exhibiting abstract paintings in Santa Fe. Her work has been shown internationally, she exhibits regularly in national and international galleries and she has created commissions for Boston University, Chevron, Vanderbilt University, and Kaiser Permanente to name a few. Continue reading Priscilla Robinson

Beck Whitehead is a San Antonio artist who served as Chair of Papermaking and Book Arts at the Southwest School of Art until 2016. In addition she has taught workshops in papermaking around the country and in Canada. Exhibitions include the Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago and the Robert C. Williams American Museum of papermaking in Atlanta. Continue reading Beck Whitehead

Shawn Sheehy has been teaching book arts courses and workshops on the national level since 2001. His broadsides and artist book editions have been collected by numerous prestigious institutions, including Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, Library of Congress, UCLA, and Harvard. Sheehy's trade pop-up book Welcome to the Neighborwood (a mass-market version of his artist book) was released in 2015, winning numerous awards. He's currently at work on his next trade book—a mass-market version of his artist book Beyond the Sixth Extinction—and it will be released through Candlewick in Autumn 2018. He holds an MFA in the Book Arts from Columbia College Chicago. Continue reading Shawn Sheehy

Kit Davey is a Redwood City, California-based artist specializing in book art. Davey’s work pushes the boundaries of “bookness” by using unusual materials such as mica, acetate, flattened coins and teabags as pages, and making book covers from shells, coins, driftwood, rulers, buttons and acetate. Davey has taught over 70 different book structures, holding her classes on Zoom so that students the world over can join her.  Her work is available on her website, www.foundobject-art.com and at San Francisco Bay Area art events.  She makes a book a day and shares them on Instagram.

Jennifer J. Woodward is an artist and small business owner living and working in Portland, OR. With a background focused on mixed media installation, drawing and papermaking, Jenn is currently exploring the relationship between local and sustainable materials and the themes of empathy, identity and mindfulness in her art practice. Continue reading Jenn Woodward

From being a TV commercial producer and director in bombay, Jenny Pinto moved to bangalore 20 years ago where she now lives and has a studio where she and her team make paper from banana and lokta fibres. She also designs and produces a range of lights from both paper and papercrete. Her interest in sustainable materials and practices urges her to keep exploring. Continue reading Jenny Pinto

Oblation Papers & Press is an urban paper mill, letterpress print shop, hand-bindery and fine paper boutique. Our in-house team of designers releases roughly 30 new items annually, inspired by music, quirky conversation, toys, textiles, travel, food, architecture, literature and historical objects. Continue reading Oblation Papers & Press

Ray Tomasso lives in Colorado where he works as a professional fine artist exhibiting and appearing in corporate, public and private collections internationally. Continue reading Ray Tomasso

Michelle Wilson is a printmaker, papermaking, book, installation, and social practice artist. Her practice includes frequent collaborations with other artists, in particular her ongoing projects Book Bombs (with Mary Tasillo) and the Rhinoceros Project (with Anne Beck). Wilson currently teaches printmaking at San Jose State University and Stanford University. Continue reading Michelle Wilson

I interviewed Mary Heebner at the CODEX Book Fair in Berkeley, so pardon the background noise and distractions! What I find fascinating about her work is the way that she takes her understanding of paper and the papermaking process and collaborates with experts to create the papers for her books. It is a lovely organic process. Continue reading Mary Heebner

Jillian Bruschera is an interdisciplinary artist and arts-activist creating works in visual art, writing, public installation, body performance, and social practice. Alternating between a studio and a social practice, handmade recycled paper is a primary material for installation, assemblage and performance. Continue reading Jillian Bruschera

Jill Powers creates environmental art, mixed media sculpture, and installation fiber art with unusual natural materials. Her primary art material is bark fiber, which she has developed as a contemporary art medium. Jill is on Visual Art faculty at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Jill has shown her work internationally, and her work is in private, corporate, and museum collections. Continue reading Jill Powers

Susan Mackin Dolan was born in a small town in Maine near the northern end of the Appalachian Trail. She received her MFA at the University of Colorado Boulder, in printmaking and papermaking. In 1984 she helped establish the first papermaking studio in south Texas, Picante Papers, at the Southwest School of Art and was the original Chairperson. Continue reading Susan Mackin Dolan

Simon Barcham Green is the sixth generation of the family that ran Hayle Mill, Maidstone from 1812 to 1987. He has a BSc in Paper Science from the University of Manchester and worked in half a dozen machine mills before joining the family business where he introduced the first alkaline sized mould-made water color and hand-made papers in the world. Continue reading Simon Barcham Green

Ilze Dilane is a papermaker and artist in Riga, Latvia who runs a papermaking studio out of the Pardaugava Music and Art School, where she teaches children, teachers and adults about the art and craft of handmade paper. Dilane also runs an annual papermaking symposium in Rite, Latvia.

Mary Hark, Associate Professor in Design Studies, affiliated with African Studies & Art, teaches papermaking and textile design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is invited to conduct workshops and lecture at Art Centers and Universities internationally. She is the proprietor of HARK! Handmade Paper where she produces limited editions of high quality handmade papers in collaboration with book designers and artists, as well as paper artworks that have been exhibited internationally. Continue reading Mary Hark

Amanda Degener graduated from Bennington College and then received an MFA from Yale School of Art. Her work is in countless private collections including Library of Congress, Walker Art Center, and Cowles Media Company and she has collaborated with many talented artists from coast to coast. In 1984 she moved her paper studio to the not-yet-opened Minnesota Center for Book Arts where she was a Founder, their first Artist in Residence and later, their first Artistic Director. Cave Paper was the recipient of the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library 2012 Minnesota Book Artist Award sponsored by Lerner Publishing Group based on her work as a production hand papermaker. Degener founded and for eight years co-published Hand Papermaking Magazine, they just had their 30th anniversary. Her community service work includes volunteering for non-for-profits, co-organizing national paper conferences (four of them) and teaching Tai Chi. Degener educates through writing, publishing and traveling to teach and exhibit her work in the United States and in places such as Japan, Italy, Sweden, Canada, Australia, Korea, and Taiwan/China. Continue reading Amanda Degener

Bridget O'Malley is a master papermaker and co-­owner of Cave Paper Inc., a handmade paper mill specializing in natural­ dyed flax papers. She is an adjunct professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She offers book, paper, and print workshops around the country. Her artwork focuses on forms found in nature, and bringing those to life through the interplay of print, paper, and sculpture. Continue reading Bridget O’Malley

Eden Marek is a unicycle-riding, soccer ball-wielding artist from Ames, Iowa. She has a B.A. in Studio Art from Grinnell College, where she graduated in 2015. Eden works in sculpture, hand papermaking, and sound art, preferring to combine all three when possible. A recipient of the Faulconer Gallery Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship, she remained at Grinnell College for a year to assist with the Artists@Grinnell Residency Program, help coach the Grinnell Women's Soccer Team, and collaborate with sound artist and composer Abby Aresty. Continue reading Eden Marek

Andrea Peterson is an internationally exhibiting artist and educator. Her work is multifaceted exploring all types of paper fibers and processes and includes paper works, prints, artist books, and environmental installation pieces. She combines paper arts, printmaking and book arts to make works that address human relationship to the environment. Continue reading Andrea Peterson

Timothy Barrett is a professor in the University of Iowa Center for the Book and the School of Library and Information Science. He was director of the Center between 1996 and 2002 and became director again in the fall of 2012. His recent research can be found here and by searching “Chancery Papermaking” on YouTube. Continue reading Timothy Barrett

Tatiana Ginsberg makes drawings, prints, installations, and books, most of which use her own handmade paper. She studied at the University of Iowa Center for the Book before spending two years in Japan researching naturally dyed papers under a Fulbright grant. Continue reading Tatiana Ginsberg

February 13, 2016: Catherine Nash specializes in Japanese and Western hand papermaking, encaustic painting and mixed media drawing. She is a teaching artist who balances her studio work with artist-in-resident teaching, lectures and workshops internationally. Continue reading Catherine Nash

The ultimate guide to papermaking

Making your own paper is a mesmerizing and versatile craft. Let Modern Papermaking show you how to create countless paper sheets with a few tools and practice. Among many other things, the paper you make can be a foundation for painting, illustration, stationery, and lettering. Handmade paper can upgrade the starting point of your creative work, or you can use the techniques to create stand-alone works of art to display, gift, and share. The craft is relatively easy and accessible since all the essential tools and supplies needed can be DIY'd, recycled, and thrifted.

• Includes 13 projects, ranging from bold and eye-catching to professional and fine-art quality
• Get tips and practical advice on selling your one-of-a-kind paper collections for other makers to use in their 2D work.
• With an endless variety of add-ins and decorative techniques, papermaking is an infinitely entertaining skill.

Dorothy Field is a visual artist who uses handmade paper for sculptural works and artists’ books.

Marieke de Hoop runs PapierLab in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She has been making and experimenting with paper for the past 40 years using traditional papermaking techniques. De Hoop works with other artists and makers to create unique, beautiful and sustainable papers and products.

Learn more on the episode page.

Therese Zemlin has worked in a range of media, including paper, welded steel, light, digital media, and natural materials. Her work ranges from small sculpture to installation and is inspired by elements and phenomena of the ever-changing natural world. She has exhibited her work nationally, and has received numerous grants, including a Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowship, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. After earning a BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, Zemlin taught Fibers and Sculpture at the University of South Carolina, Columbia; Appalachian State University in North Carolina; and Phillips Academy Andover. She currently divides her time between Saint Paul and the north woods of Minnesota. 

Jennie Frederick earned her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in fibers, followed by an MFA from Indiana State University. She apprenticed with Douglass Morse Howell, Bob Serpa, from Imago, and received her MFA for apprenticing at Twinrocker Handmade Paper. Frederick founded Kansas City Paperworks, Inc. in 1983 and has taught at the Kansas City Art Institute and MCC-Maple Woods, where she developed a Fiber & Papermaking Program. She is currently a full-time artist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico and her current work utilizes techniques/processes that she developed following documentation in the Mexican villages of San Pablito, in Puebla State, and Lacanha and Naha in Chiapas.

Brian Queen has been making paper by hand for 30 years and utilizing a wide range of materials and techniques. His interests span the book arts including hand papermaking, bookbinding and letterpress printing. As a craftsman and toolmaker, he explores how new technologies such as 3-D printing, laser cutters, and CNC machines impact the book arts. Along with his brother, he owns and operates Sensa-Light Ltd., a company that manufactures customs architectural lighting for offices, hotels and restaurants.

Sammy Lee is an artist based in Denver, Colorado. Lee was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to Southern California at the age of sixteen. She studied fine art and media art at UCLA and architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Among her many accomplishments is a performative collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma during the Bach project tour in 2018.

Emily Martin has produced more than fifty artist’s books, often using movable and/or sculptural paper engineering techniques. Martin’s books are included in public and private collections throughout the world, and she has received grants and residencies from the College Book Arts Association, the Center for Book Arts in New York City, and the Bodleian Bibliographical Press in Oxford, England among others.  Martin has two adult daughters and lives in Iowa City, IA with her Vandercook SP15 printing press. She rides her bicycle as often as she can, sometimes all the way across the state of Iowa.

Peter Thomas is a book artist, and a hand papermaker with a special interest in production papermaking. He has been making fine press and artist books in collaboration with his wife Donna Thomas since 1977. All of the books they make us their own handmade paper, and some of their books relating to papermaking include Beater Time Tests (1987), A Collection of Paper Samples from Hand Paper Mills in the United States of America (1993), Paper from Plants (1997), The History of Papermaking in the Philippines (2005), Tuckenhay Mill: People and Paper (2016), and Paper Samples (2022). Peter Thomas has written books and articles about papermaking and the book arts, produced a documentary/educational video titled “The Ergonomics of Hand Papermaking, and been active in the leadership of IAPMA (International Association of Papermakers and Paper Artists), and the Friends of Dard Hunter (now North American Hand Papermakers).

Madonna Yoder started folding origami tessellations after taking Erik Demaine's Geometric Folding Algorithms class at MIT and she has designed over 300 new tessellations since 2018. Yoder helps aspiring tessellation folders to deeply understand tessellations so that they can fold from crease patterns, reverse engineer from photos, and even start designing their own tessellations through online videos and courses with her business, Gathering Folds. And unlike most origami instructors, she doesn't focus on individual designs in tutorials, but instead teaches broader structures, theory, and skills so that you can start folding new designs with confidence and get the most out of any tessellation workshop you attend.

Jane Ingram Allen is a sculptor and installation artist who uses hand papermaking with natural materials and collaborative processes to create indoor and outdoor artworks that raise public awareness about environmental issues. Jane has received numerous awards for residencies and community public art projects in the USA, the Philippines, Japan, Nepal, Brazil, China, Tanzania, Taiwan, Turkey, Indonesia and other countries. She was a Fulbright Scholar artist-in-residence in Taiwan in 2004 and 2005 and a Fulbright Specialist in Turkey in 2015. Jane is a former college art instructor and currently teaches workshops and writes about art for SCULPTURE and other art magazines as well as doing independent curating. She was born and raised in Alabama and has lived in 7 different states and in Taiwan for 8 years. Since 2012 she has been based in Santa Rosa, CA, and continues showing her work in the US and internationally.

Margaret Rhein has been involved full time in the art & craft of making paper by hand at her studio, Terrapin Paper Mill in Cincinnati, Ohio for the past 47 years. She has exhibited her paper collages in galleries and craft shows throughout the country and has taught many workshops in papermaking and book arts to adults and children. Over the years, she has made thousands of sheets of handmade paper, experimenting with a variety of fibers, shapes, colors and textures in 2- and 3-dimensional approaches. Rhein works spontaneously using colored cotton & linen pulps and combining patterned fabrics of various textures with other collage elements. on the paper surface. She is inspired by plant forms, landscapes and figurative themes and finds that papermaking lends itself to the collage process – the base fibers in a sheet of fresh handmade paper integrate with the components she applies to its surface. By adding artifacts and autobiographical treasures, paper excels in being a platform for telling stories, capturing memories and bringing deeper meaning to the resulting works of art.

Carol Barton is a painter, paper engineer, book artist and teacher who has published several editions and has organized both local and national shows, including the traveling Books and Bookends show and the Smithsonian Institution’s Science and the Artist's Book exhibition. Her work is exhibited internationally and is in numerous collections, including the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She has taught at elementary, high school, and university levels, and has conducted adult workshops at art centers internationally. She was on the faculty at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia for 35 years and George Washington University’s Corcoran School of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. for four years. She has had residencies at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy and the Sacatar Foundation in Brazil, GilsfjordurArts in Iceland, and the VCCA residency in France. Her Pocket Paper Engineer workbooks in three volumes are how-to guides to making pop-up cards and pages. She is now producing a series of watercolor landscape paintings for exhibition.

Andrew Dewar was born in Toronto in 1961, and has degrees in Journalism, Japanese Studies, and Library Science. He has lived in Japan since 1988. Since completing his Ph.D. studies at Keio University in Tokyo, he has taught at several colleges, and for the past decade has been principal of Tokai Daiichi Kindergarten as well as professor and Library Director at Tokai Gakuin University in Gifu, Japan. Soon after arriving in Japan, he rediscovered his childhood love of paper airplanes, and has been flying, designing, and publishing for more than three decades. He also teaches papercraft at schools, community centers, and museums around the country. He has more than 40 publications in English and Japanese.

Megan Singleton is a practicing artist, educator, and mother located in St. Louis, Missouri. The investigation of ecological relationships within society and the landscape is the basis of her work. As an interdisciplinary artist, she creates works that resonate with the materiality and rhythms of the natural world. Her creative practice intertwines sculpture, handmade paper, found objects, photography, and books arts. Singleton received her MFA in sculpture from Louisiana Sate University and her BFA in Photography form Webster University in St.Louis. She actively exhibits and was the recipient of the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission Artist Fellowship Grant, the Smelser-Vallion Visiting Artist Fellowship in Taos, NM and has participated in Artist Residencies across the US.

Simon Arizpe is an award winning pop-up book designer, paper engineer and illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY. His work received the 2018-2019 Meggendorfer Prize, the highest honor in pop-up book design, as well as the Award of Excellence from the Society of Illustrators. A graduate of The Pratt Institute, Arizpe worked for over 10 years as the senior paper engineer at several of the top pop-up book studios in the world before opening his own pop-up book studio in 2014. Working on every aspect of pop-up book design: from concept and engineering to mass production and printing on over 35 projects. Arizpe has also designed several award winning holiday cards for Museum of Modern Art Design Store. In addition to his design work, Arizpe is the professor of paper engineering at The Pratt Institute and  Parsons School of Design in New York City.

Helen Hiebert is the author of six instructional books on papermaking and papercrafts and is widely respected as a generous teacher and mentor. Working from her studio in Colorado, Helen hosts classes and retreats, and extends her outreach by teaching online. Her weekly Sunday Paper Blog keeps the field up-to-date regarding a wide range of paper artists and paper-related news. Her monthly Paper Talk podcast series features recorded interviews with papermakers, paper artists, paper engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs. Helen’s contributions as an artist, author, and teacher have had a significant and important impact on the papermaking community.