Paper and Book Intensive is an annual working sabbatical in the book arts, papermaking, and conservation for seasoned practitioners and motivated beginners. For more than thirty years, participants have gathered together from around the world for two weeks of daily workshops to promote unusual levels of exchange, knowledge and inspiration.
SESSION ONE: Paper Threads: North Country Shifu
Shifu is a web of threads spun from paper and woven into cloth. This weaving tradition emerged from rural Japan in the early 1600’s simultaneously with the proliferation and popularity of handmade paper. Cloths were woven for both rustic or everyday use and for very fine textiles, often kimono. Shifu clothing exhibits many of the characteristics of washi; it can be both a cool fabric for summer wear or, when spun and woven thickly, a warm cold weather textile. In this class, we’ll explore the beautiful technique of spinning a continuous thread called kami-ito from a sheet of handmade, long fibered paper. We’ll then use our threads to weave shifu on small looms we make, to stitch on other papers, and to use in other fiber techniques. Working in the paper studio, we’ll make papers that complement our kami-itoand shifu, combining pulp, page, and line.