STUDENTS TURN OUT HAND-MADE PAPER AT UO STUDIO
May 29, 2001
Contact Pauline Austin (541) 346-3129 EUGENE–Working in the tight confines of a
small studio at the University of Oregon, Don Voss feeds chunks of linen fiber
into a Hollander beater, a contraption vaguely reminiscent of your
great-grandmother’s washing machine. A few yards away, Tracy Castagna uses a
specially designed mold to dip milky looking pulp from a huge vat. These
UO students are up to their elbows in pulp as part of associate art professor
Margaret Prentice’s studio on papermaking. Along with two dozen classmates,
they’re learning to make their own paper–not the kind you can buy from
your local stationer, but the kind you have to special order from one of the
handful of American artisans who still make paper by hand. Prentice,
recognized as one of the nation’s premier experts on hand-made paper, is
sharing her art with the students who enrolled in this new class offered by the
UO Department of Art. Prentice, along with her twin sister Kathryn Clark
and their husbands, helped establish the Twinrocker Handpaper Mill, now known
around the world for its production of quality paper. Prentice coordinates the
printmaking area and teaches all of the UO classes in intaglio and relief
printmaking. "I always wanted to teach paper making at the UO,"
she says, "but until this year we just didn’t have the
equipment." The Hollander beater–along with some specially made
vats, hand paper molds and a paper dryer–make up the tools needed to make an
almost limitless variety of hand-made paper. With the acquisition of these key
tools, Prentice this year was able to launch the paper making class. Students in the class learn the traditional Western method of making paper,
the traditional Japanese method, and how to cast paper into three-dimensional
forms. "I feel strongly about paper as an art medium and how
adaptable it is," Prentice says. "These students are getting an
intensive course in the technical aspects of paper making. At the end of the
term, they will be prepared to go to any class in the art department. They will
be able to use hand made paper in the context of that course, whether or not the
professor knows how to make paper." Prentice is gratified that
students like Voss, who wants to create unique journals; Castagna, a
photographer; and Karen Lamb, a lithographer; signed up for the course. "When we taught ourselves to make paper 40 years ago, making paper by
hand was a dying craft in the United States," says Prentice. "I
don’t want to see that happen again." —30— #F-6086/Local,A&E,OrDailies