Getting down to business, and a visit to the glass studio

Here's the paper studio on a sunny day--so far this has been rare! And below is what it looked like inside when we first arrived. 

 Barbara, from Asheville (below), sits at the table next to me everyday and we compare notes on what we're doing.  In weeks two and three, we started producing paper and book structures, and now our desks are piled high with projects finished and in progress.

During an early session, Melissa (in red) taught us how to gauge amounts of water and pulp to use in a vat.

 Kelly draining a sheet (below).

Some of the sheets  have inclusions (like tea or bits of plant fiber) or  contain floculated pigments (bits of color side by side)

Josiah really got into pulp painting, and here he is "couching" a sheet of handmade paper onto a pellon (a sheet of synthetic fabric) to be pressed and dried.  Below are a couple of examples of the final pulp-sprayed works, which he plans to hang in a window. 

During a break in the action, we visited one of the other studios, the glass studio   The two guys blowing glass in the hot glass studio are in the 8 week concentration. The glass beads were made in the flame working studio during a one-week class.

 Back at our studio: once we've made some paper, we then learn to make book structures by watching an instructor's demo.  Heather Bella, our studio assistant made the two beautiful coptic-stitch bound books below in her (rare) off hours, when she wasn't helping us. Heather is a recent  graduate of the MFA program, Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College of Chicago (where Melissa Craig taught for many years). 

 Here's Heather demonstrating paper folding techniques and coptic stitching.

To end this blog session—this is our work board (below)—we are learning that a paper making studio has to be well organized or it collapses into chaotic mess.

And finally--clean pellons blowing in the sun and wind.  On beautiful days like this, there's nothing like making paper outdoors.