Paper Talk

Madeleine Durham is an artist in Santa Fe, New Mexico who was introduced to paste painting when she studied painting and book arts at Santa Fe Community College. One day when she applied paste to a sheet of paper with a brush, she noticed a line that her brush created on the sheet of paper. She tells me how she’d probably created similar lines lots of times, but something happened that day that inspired her unique and gorgeous style of paste painting. We chat about a couple of unique commissioned papers she’s created, where she travels to sell her papers in person, and how she decided to teach her unique process to others. Continue reading Madeleine Durham

You can listen to this episode by clicking on the white arrow above, or subscribe to the Paper Talk podcast in iTunes so you never miss an episode. If you enjoy the show, tell a friend about it! Thank you so much.

Madeleine Durham is a paste paper artist who shows her work in her hometown of Santa Fe, NM and around the country.  She travels to many shows including the annual Guild of Book Workers  Standards Conference,  the International Calligraphy Conference, and Codex.  Her papers lend themselves well to many applications including fine book binding, calligraphy, book art, and collage.  She’s produced special-edition work for Nawakum Press, Palace Press, and Instagram. Her papers are part of the Paper Legacy Project in the Watson Library at the MET.  In a moment of inspiration years ago she happened upon a way of creating paste paper designs using a brush technique.  Her technique has evolved into a painterly approach with which she creates New Mexico landscapes and floral mandalas.  A member of the Santa Fe Society of Artists, she displays and sells her art just off the city’s historic downtown plaza.  She also teaches.

Check out her gorgeous paste papers:

 

 

Watch this amazing video by Carlo Zanella about Madeleine’s work!

Here you see Madeleine surrounded by her artwork at her booth at the Santa Fe Society of Artists show:

You can learn more about Madeleine on her website, follow her on instagram and facebook.

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Music featuring excerpts of Makin’ Paper folk song by Peter Thomas. Listen to the full song and find out about other paper and book arts folk songs.

Gary A. Hanson did the sound editing for this episode.  He practices and refines his skills in audio production while making his own podcast I’ll Have a Beer and Talk, a show about tech news, culture, weird animal stories and of course, beer. Gary is also the Deckle in Pulp & Deckle, a Portland-based community hand papermaking studio.

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Melanie Brauner is an artist in the Pacific Northwest who makes lovely hand dipped paper & metal jewelry. She grew up around artists, makers and craftspeople, and she never questioned whether she could be an artist and make a living. She learned to make paper with me at the Oregon College of Art & Craft, where she studied book arts and metals. We talk about how her business took off after she started wearing her jewelry around campus – people were buying the pieces she was wearing – and how she’s built a super successful jewelry business with her work in over 50 retail shops around the country. Enjoy our conversation! Continue reading Melanie Brauner

You can listen to this episode by clicking on the white arrow above, or subscribe to the Paper Talk podcast in iTunes so you never miss an episode. If you enjoy the show, tell a friend about it! Thank you so much.

Melanie Brauner is a hand papermaker, metalsmith, and sometimes book artist living and working in Everett, Washington. Her jewelry line, Verso, is made from hand-fabricated metal forms cast with a paper skin and coated in resin, and her mixed media sculpture is made from her own handmade paper, metal, wood, reed, and paint. Her work explores the Kantian concept that beauty can be universal, and that imitation of nature may be the path to a universal beauty. She graduated from Oregon College of Art and Craft with a BFA in 2014, where she studied book arts and metals. She launched Verso in January 2016, and now sells her jewelry at art fairs year round, and at galleries, art museum shops, and boutiques all around the country.

Here are a few images of her jewelry:

People often question the durability of paper jewelry. Melanie’s pieces are resilient and waterproof!

We talked a bit about her sculpture:

And this is the supplier she mentioned for kakishibu (persimmon tannin).

You can learn more about Melanie on her website, follow her on instagram and facebook.

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Music featuring excerpts of Makin’ Paper folk song by Peter Thomas. Listen to the full song and find out about other paper and book arts folk songs.

Gary A. Hanson did the sound editing for this episode.  He practices and refines his skills in audio production while making his own podcast I’ll Have a Beer and Talk, a show about tech news, culture, weird animal stories and of course, beer. Gary is also the Deckle in Pulp & Deckle, a Portland-based community hand papermaking studio.

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Jocelyn Chateauvert is a paper artist in South Carolina who manipulates abaca and flax in astounding ways. She discovered hand papermaking while getting an MFA in metals and jewelry at the University of Iowa. We talk about how she started out combining paper and metal, two seemingly disparate materials. Jocelyn then tells me how her work has evolved from jewelry and body adornment, to sculpture, installation, and lighting, and how she has come up with a vocabulary for the more than 50 unique techniques she has developed for manipulating paper. Continue reading Jocelyn Chateauvert

You can listen to this episode by clicking on the white arrow above, or subscribe to the Paper Talk podcast in iTunes so you never miss an episode. If you enjoy the show, tell a friend about it! Thank you so much.

Jocelyn Châteauvert is a paper artist, who creates jewelry, lighting, sculpture, and installations from the paper she makes by hand. After earning an MFA from the University of Iowa, she taught electro-forming at Middlesex Polytechnic in London, and then established her career in San Francisco. Since 1999, she has lived in Charleston, South Carolina, devoting herself to handmade paper. She is recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship and the Craft Fellowship award from the South Carolina Arts Commission. Her work is in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC), South Carolina State Museum and the Medical University of South Carolina.

Here are a few images of some of the jewelry we talked about:

White September, pure paper, created from abaca

Eve, Clothes Optional, sterling silver and abaca.

And this one, from the Life Sucks series.

“Electrolux” pin (1996, sterling silver, artist-made paper, 1/4″x3-1/2″x3/4″)by Jocelyn Chateauvert of Charleston, South Carolina, for The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery catalog, 10/06.

And take a look at how she manipulates paper!

Littoral Husk

Here is an installation shot + a detail of her Invasive Species installation that won the People’s Choice Award at Art Fields:

And here are some of her lovely lights, installed at Peppervine Restaurant in Charlotte, NC:

You can learn more about Jocelyn on her website.

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Music featuring excerpts of Makin’ Paper folk song by Peter Thomas. Listen to the full song and find out about other paper and book arts folk songs.

Gary A. Hanson did the sound editing for this episode.  He practices and refines his skills in audio production while making his own podcast I’ll Have a Beer and Talk, a show about tech news, culture, weird animal stories and of course, beer. Gary is also the Deckle in Pulp & Deckle, a Portland-based community hand papermaking studio.

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Drew Matott, like so many papermakers I talk to, stumbled upon the medium by chance, when he was at Buffalo State College, where he wanted to study film. He is the co-founder of Combat Paper and the founder of Peace Paper Project, programs which involve turning meaningful pieces of old clothing into handmade paper. We chat about the unique business model of Peace Paper. and the most recent developments, including a DIY Hollander beater and St Pauli Paper, a new papermaking studio in Hamburg, Germany. Enjoy our conversation! Continue reading Drew Matott

Drew Matott divides his time between teaching at colleges, doing art residencies, completing studio work, designing new papermaking endeavors and directing Peace Paper Project. He has taught Photography and Contemporary Printmaking at North Country Community College, and Papermaking courses at the Community College of Vermont, Edgewood College, Ursuline College, Massachusetts College of Art and San Francisco Center for the Book. Since 2009, he has taught and exhibited internationally and completed numerous artist residencies.

This is the first book Drew created with handmade paper while at Buffalo State College. The book is a tribute to his late father, and contains his poems, drawings, photographs and writings.

Click through to watch some videos of the DIY Hollander beater in action:

Vernon & Madeleine Weiring, a father-daughter team based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently launched their company Papillon Papers. I fell in love with some of the gorgeous decorated papers I’ve seen on their website and wanted to learn more about them, especially after reading that they call themselves design archeologists – how cool is that? – they dig through the past to find designs and decorated papers and resurrect them. In this episode we talk about how they look through old books, mostly from the 19th century, seeking decorative end paper designs that appeal to them, and then bring theses sheets that have been hidden under the covers of old books back to life! Listen to our conversation to find out how they are doing this. Enjoy! Continue reading Papillon Papers

Papillon Papers is run by Madeleine and Vernon Wiering, a father and daughter design team working together to uncover exciting decorated papers and designs from a variety of historical periods and artistic trends. Digging into the past, they are like design archaeologists, looking at old books and objects to find designs and beautiful papers that we then recreate or use as inspiration for new designs.

Here’s one of their block printed sheets, Italian Diamond in bone black: