¡Colores!; 1930, 2117; Suzanne Vilmain, Bookmaker, Disc 3

I think they were just the same thing. Yeah. I think it shrinks on this, and that's why you're getting that kind of wrinkled, like. Yeah. Exactly. Right, yeah. Oh, yes. So you know when real paper makers, they have drying racks, and they set that all up. Mm-hmm. Okay, you know, I don't mean this is a disclaimer on any love, but I don't think it's any level as far as the paper making goes, but you should know I just learned this. And I learned it from Helen Hebert. She's written the book on paper making, and she should be given credit for what I'm doing here.

Do you want me to special thanks for the credit? Yeah, because, you know, she taught me this in one weekend, and after that I have been making papers ever since, and that was in May, and I'm two months into it, and I don't see any end until the weather changes. Yeah. Yeah. I can work out here until October easily, although it does rain. Yeah. It's interesting, the wool kind of works as a sponge, it keeps it going. Traditionally people did this on felted wool, because it's great with water, but felt

is so expensive now, so Steve just went to the local hardware store and got me a blanket, and it's just, it's not, I'm not throwing down on the felt, but it really holds. Right. The water. Traditionally you'd put it right on the felt. Yeah. I probably wouldn't shrink as much, but it would shrink in a different way. I did cast this, I cast some paper right under the blanket, and what happens is that all the fuzz of the blanket came up on the backside. I mean, not. Not. Poor boy. I didn't get near it. Well, so I have two pieces of paper rather than one. Oh, you were going to, were you going to try to make one sheet? I don't know, I don't know, I don't think so. Yeah, the old emanates. That. I thought you were going to pull the, put something inside and hold it together. Oh. You know, we could do that.

You could make it at the end. Yeah, let's do that with the next one. So my typical day is I come out, I start making papers, I fill up all my pelons, everything is covered with paper. I go in and do whatever for the next hour or so and then I come out and tear off the pages and start over. I'm trying to see how much paper I can make in a day, it's like a gig, gig yourself. Well, I know that eventually I'm going to want to do an addition of something, so I just write, you want to know your process so you can, so what could I put inside of this, it would be a memento souvenir for you, and you can go away with a sheet of paper that

has its very own hiding place. Oh, actually, I have some flowers over there too, I could, or lavender? Yeah, lavender. Because then it will have a scent. Oh, that would be wonderful. All right. And some kind of signature. That's kind of beautiful isn't it? All right.

This is like three-year-old lavender from my farmer down the road, Lauren, teaching. All right. What do you love about making this paper?

I love the mindlessness of it. When I'm out here doing this by myself, it's very meditative. I just get into this other space and I'm going to put this in here to remind you you are always a book blender. That is what is called the sound tape, the ends of your spine, they'll often put a, they'll sew it up. I've seen that in one anime. Oh good, the red is going to spread.

I guess maybe I'm going to send you home with an image for red writing paper. I love the way you wrote the story and the way you told it in the book. After I showed that book to some friends, it turns out that Kiki Smith did a red writing hood series too and I went and looked at it and she used a very, I mean, she and I had the same sources for the script. I was like, we read, you know, there are probably several dozen red writing hood stories.

And most of them are not all of them. They don't always survive. You know, red writing doesn't survive. Maybe there's a grandmother. So this was a particular tape where they survive. Maybe she doesn't always survive. Wow. Oh. Well, no, that's alright. It's a, let's just see if we can mash. Oh no, this is well within the realm of how this goes. I mean, you never know if it's going to stick or not. Now, I have done two laps on here. I mean, I could do another sheet over this.

Can we do that? Yeah. Isn't it amazing how fast that sets up? And is there quite a balance between getting it too dry or having it too wet? No, obviously still experimenting with that. I didn't really want to push on this before, sorry. Okay. I think you did it.

Yeah, I think I did. There is a shape for you to go home with. It's very, what's that? Now for your answer. Almost more than I deserve. All right. This is one of my first mistakes. You should just look at that for it's incredible. What you can see in that paper. Oh, here's another great one too. Were you trying to do too late? Like it has the shiny layer? Is there something with this? Look at that from that side. This pattern is so great. The things I'm designing towards is a bucky, buckinster fuller dome of paper that's attached as if they were kites.

I can do it in a smaller but pretend. Yeah, I am pretending. I mean, just seeing you move through some of these amazing papers is cool. You know, and you think about the techniques of book binding and making very firm falls that you then can take completely out by just wetting the paper again. It can constantly go back to its original source. You can press control speed. Yeah. One of the deals I've caught with myself in doing this this summer was that I couldn't just make paper. I had to come in every few days and make a book. I mean, you know, because otherwise all I do is just make paper.

So I have to make a triangle book. No, it's more a pick a challenge so that I'm not just doing the easier convenient thing all the time. Because bookmaking requires a lot of concentration. Papermaking requires very little. So to balance that out, that constantly being seduced by just, I'll just go make paper. But you know, it's good to have something to do that doesn't require you to think. I think that's a really important part of art making is the non-thinking. I think that's my favorite part. I think it in that zone where you're just like, oh, yeah. I just, oh, my blue.

I could actually sew for you. I started this book yesterday. And that is truly the most boring thing about bookmaking. In my early days, I'd just get my mom sewing machine and I would just literally sew my signatures together with a sewing machine, just run them through. Definitely. And you would have to do this to each page. Each signature. These are signatures.

You can have like two sheets, which is four pages in a signature. Yeah. It's because this paper is so thick though that you know they don't really have to worry about. I have too much on my desk here. Do you still put things on Etsy? No, you know, I don't know how you found me on Etsy. I've never put anything on Etsy. I bought things from Etsy.

Yeah. Oh, so you just, yeah, see, you and you have to have an account because lucky you found it. Yeah, well, you could have just contacted, uh, down a new man. Right. She would have told her, um, well, who I contacted next was, uh, Ian Wrinkler at the site Santa Fe. And she would have a show there. And so I asked her for a little, very nice suggestion that I'd be contacted. And I said, that was the next, that was the next try. It's probably good, huh?