by Lauren | Mar 5, 2011 | Uncategorized
In my first spring at UA, my papermaking class went on the annual “kozo hunt”–our affectionate term for the harvest of the elusive paper mulberry tree. It’s also that one occasion where I get to use the machete that usually lives under my bed.... 
by Lauren | Feb 22, 2011 | Uncategorized
So what’s this book about, you ask. A friend summed it up as “birds and botched relationships.” It’s snappy and accurate. I like it. The text is somewhat anecdotal, at times embellished, but always truthful–for someone out there, if not... 
by Lauren | Feb 17, 2011 | Uncategorized
I’m not a fan of footnotes, really. I generally find them distracting, like little tangents in conversations that you just wish you could fast-forward through. Literary gnats, if you will. But it seems, in this case, that my first entry about papermaking was in... 
by Lauren | Feb 13, 2011 | Uncategorized
My friend Sonja learned to make paper from corn last summer in San Antonio. When she came back to Alabama, she said she wanted to make another batch and said, “You know a place we could get lots of corn husks?” My father keeps a garden every summer, filled... 
by Lauren | Feb 9, 2011 | Uncategorized
So as part of my MFA thesis, I’m recording the highlights and follies that occur along the way. My thesis is a handmade book, designed, printed and illustrated by me. Part of making this book from beginning to end means that I’m making the paper by hand.... 
by Lauren | Nov 30, 2010 | Uncategorized
Days until Christmas: 25. It’s that time again. Every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, my parents and I venture out the tree farm to pick their Christmas tree. Watching my mother roam the farm, holding the measuring pole next to each tree, I begin to see...