Paper Talk

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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. Whitehead creates paper paintings and one-of-a-kind books. Exhibitions include the Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago and the Robert C. Williams American Museum of papermaking in Atlanta.

© 2009 Beck Whitehead, 15×15, abaca paper painting

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.

Shawn Sheehy has been teaching book arts courses and workshops on the national level since 2001 and holds an MFA in the Book Arts from Columbia College Chicago. 

Shawn is a Chicago paper artist who uses pop-ups to take full advantage of the expressive potential of a book’s imagery, allowing for moving, three-dimensional form within the book format. In this episode, we discussed Shawn’s career trajectory from design school to discovering book arts and how he incorporates handmade paper into his artist’s books and trade editions.

© Shawn Sheehy, pop-up spreads from A Pop-Up Guide to North American Wildflowers.

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.

Shawn’s trade pop-up book 

Paper Talk Episode #18

On today’s episode of Paper Talk, I’m talking with Jenn Woodward, artist and small business owner living and working in Portland, OR. We talked about how Jenn’s business, Pulp & Deckle Studio, has grown over the past decade with the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign and a business incubator program (all part of her business plan) and which has led, among other things, to a residency program that allows artists working in other media to explore hand papermaking. We also talked about Jenn’s recent portrait project, Fruits of the Sun, which involved drawing 100 portraits of strangers on handmade paper with embedded seeds, which were then planted in community gardens around Portland.

New this episode: 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. When he’s not making paper, or whipping the administrative/technology side of the Pulp & Deckle Studio into shape, you can find him making audio magic with his podcast series, I’ll Have a Beer and Talk, a show about tech news, culture, weird animal stories and of course, beer.

More about Jenn: 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. After attending the High School for Performing & Visual Arts in Houston, she received her BFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and her MFA from the joint degree program at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston & Tufts University in 2006. In the fall of 2012 Jenn and her husband Gary A. Hanson established Pulp & Deckle, a community papermaking studio that offers workshops, demos, custom orders and a

From being a TV commercial producer and director in Bombay, India, Jenny Pinto moved to Bangalore 20 years ago where she now lives and has a studio. 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.

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.

Our wholesale line of academic, amusing, artisanal paper goods has shown in New York City trade shows for over 20 years and is sold to paper and gift shops internationally, recently exhibiting at Top Drawer London, Maison et Objet Paris 2015, and ISOT Tokyo.

Ron and Jennifer Rich founded Oblation Papers & Press in 1989. Our products are made exclusively in Portland, Oregon, adhering to the highest standards, to assure that our products not only look great, but are lasting and easy to use, as well. While we design and fashion 95% of our books, coasters, die-cut items and paper goods in-house, we do occasionally outsource part of the process to local businesses, still in Portland, Oregon.

At Oblation Papers & Press, we employ traditional techniques to make sheets of cotton paper by hand daily, using recycled remnants from the garment industry. Our paper is strong, acid-free and is perfectly suited for our letterpress printing.

Letterpress printing reflects an era of quality and craftsmanship. This historic method of printing uses raised type and images, inked and pressed into the surface of heavy papers. Sheets are fed by hand, one at a time into cast iron platen presses. Some presses in our studio date back over 100 years. For each order our production staff creates individual plates on location and finishes every piece by hand.

Our concerns for conservation affect everything we do. 26 years after our craft beginnings, we are still making paper and following recycling principals. In fact, our business has its