an invitation and shifu help

an invitation to all of my shifu students:

i've begun work on an article for Hand Papermaking journal about shifu and healing. i would like to invite you to contribute any thoughts you might have had about just that; if the shifu-making process has in any way facilitated healing in/for you. mina takahashi, the editor of HandPapermaking asked me to write about this after my observation that spinning paper and weaving a textile, especially when the paper has color or words that are deeply rich for the maker, allows an opening for a sort of healing. i made a shifu covered handmade paper book for wendy golden levitt who works with textiles and healing (especially with children) which has become the grief book. i'm curious about why that book and why shifu making has deeply affected and helped people move into healing.

if any of this resonates with your experience of shifu making, i invite you to send me a few sentences about your thoughts, and even a photo of work you’ve made. i would like to incorporate some of these into the article. please email me at vdbolyard at gmail dot com with any words/pictures, and i thank you, now twice over, for being my student and for thinking about this.

IV, III, II, I

 thursday there was so much good news:

my sister claudia macdonald, 

got her masters in school administration degree.
she did it just days before she turns 71! 
my hero.
~~~

and my friend wendy

wrote about textiles and healing

in the on-line hand eye

with lots of captioned photos 
crediting the textile makers, too,

of her healing work with and children.

my first botanical paper and shifu book is there.
~~~

there was other book news in north russell:

this:

collection 

housed in this birch box

is a letterpress book set

published by the minnesota center for book arts

and the words

are excerpts from

braiding sweetgrass

genevieve nordmark

who just graduated from esf

(another masters degree!)

was interning at the center and helped with

making the cover papers...

she sent me this.

THIS!

she took it to dr kimmerer's office 

also at esf,

and had her sign it for me.

such a treasure,

words, well, they fail me...

the illustrations:

one in each booklet,

are lovely, too.

~~~

here:

fiber raining down

pink maple seeds, too.

circlet of sweetgrass.