artist statement -

Papermaking is a great teacher because it is at once gentle and unyielding. The sensory experience is pleasing, for me, at least. Dipping my hands in that slurry, tapping out those pesky bubbles, peeling the dried paper off the pelon - it is immersive and mesmerizing and oh so pleasurable. On the other hand, it is very demanding physical work; lifting, pulling, couching, soaking, spraying, scrubbing. Laboring for hours trying to get it just right. And “just right” rarely happens. Even though I can press that wasp paper perfectly into my wet paper, as it dries it tightens up, causing creases and wrinkles, warping the paper. I want them to disappear, but why should they? Doesn’t the wasp paper have a right to make its new home its own? I am a co-creator in this after all. And if it isn't the wrinkles, it it the uneven spread of the fibers, or the air bubbles. Some kind of imperfection. And this is the era of perfectionism. No room for human error. And yet our human lives are filled with errors. Mistake after misstep after misunderstanding. The world is a cruel place to blunder through. Especially when you are a perfectionist. So why am I a papermaker? Why do I return to this medium that is inherently imperfect? 

This summer, I’d been keeping my eye out for paper wasp nests, so I could go back and find them in the fall when the wasps were gone. On one of my walks by the river, after a particularly hard downpour after months of high heat, I found two wasps nests - both crushed, in taters on the ground. You can spend months and months building something, and it can all be in taters on the ground after one rain storm. I’m just saying, this life is a lesson in humility. It is a lesson in surrender. 

I found a wasp nest by the river this summer that was still intact. I sat and watched the wasps fly busily around their nest, their tiny bodies miniscule in comparison to the mammoth nest they were building, by chewing up bark and leaves and mixing it with saliva and spitting it out. Only to die or abandon it a few short months later. This world is harsh, and imperfect, and I marvel at the beauty that is somehow sustained. I feel honored to work with the wasp nests, the labor of a thousand hours, the recreation of the environment wrapped up in a hive. The colors reflect the nature around the nest - sometimes I will find reds, golds, silvers in the gray. A nest I found in an aspen grove was almost completely white. Each nest is a reflection of its home.

The truth is, I like that papermaking encourages me to accept what is, instead of the ideal. I like that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be strange and beautiful and something to look at and wonder at. I like that I can focus on the process, surrender to the shape of the fibers and the wasp paper, to the sensory immersion, to the deckled edges and cockled sheets. Once each sheet is pressed and dried, I gently pull it free and admire it. Feel the soft texture beneath my fingers, see the light illuminating the tangle of fibers. At once, it is beautiful and flawed. It is perfect. This is the lesson I am learning. This is the lesson that I want, even though it is painful. This is a lesson in surrender, in loving the process, in radically accepting the outcome and naming it worthwhile.