The period of papermaking endeavor covered in the book is from April through November 2003 and includes discourses and instructions on how to make paper from twenty-five different plants harvested and processed during that period. Thankfully, A Papermaker's Season is not a recipe book. It resides somewhere between a journal, travelogue, and folksy botanical primer, and ends up in whole as a gloriously personal papermaking journey that Gin shares with her readers. "The act of creating a sheet of paper from a wet slurry of recycled fibers seemed almost magical. Now, four years and some two hundred plants later, I still find a sense of wonder in the process." Before her discovery of papermaking, Gin's life was filled with art. "I began carving at the age of 6 when my father taught me to sharpen a knife," she said. For nearly twenty-five years, she earned a living as "The Whistlin' Whittler" but gave up that gig in 1994 to allow time for other artistic explorations, including basketry and bookbinding. I first encountered Gin more than three years ago when her message popped up on the Yahoo! PaperMaking Group site, a message that proved both prophetic and ironic: "I'm getting ready to dig up and (hopefully) destroy a bunch of raspberries that have invaded my strawberry patch. Talk to me about processing them, please. New shoots? Old shoots? How? What does the paper look like? Is it worth the effort? (Sorry if it sounds like I want you to do all the work for me.) —Gin." After much manipulation, those invading raspberries never did end up on a couching felt, but the experience did fuel Gin's newfound passion to make paper from readily available plants. Since that first effort, Gin has tackled scores of projects involving leaves, stems, bark, and bast, and has become an invaluable contributor to the 780-member group, sharing secrets and shortcuts coupled with wit and whimsy. A born storyteller, Gin is 46 HAND PAPERMAKING always a great treat to listen to as she relates her latest adventure among the hills and hollers in the foothills of Appalachia. A Papermaker's Season is every bit a reflection of Gin's personal style, as noted in her introduction: "As for the tone of this book, I've chosen the very casual ‘I/you.' Papermaking is a very personal experience for me, and I hope by sharing the information with this voice, you will feel a part of this experience, too." Part of that personal experience came about while researching the plant life in and around Berea: "I found myself fascinated by some of the facts and fables connected to them. I was particularly intrigued by the folk medicinal uses, because so much of this ancient art is still practiced in this area. A mixture of agrimony and pounded frogs may very well cure internal hemorrhaging, but I will not take personal responsibility if you choose to try it." Agrimony is, indeed, one of the plants Gin shares with her readers: what it looks like, where it grows, and how to process and make paper from it. Gin labored long, hard, and lovingly to provide us with forty-six 2 x 3 inch swatches of her plant papers. (The reason there are more than twenty-five—the number of different plants—is because Gin has included both unbleached and bleached versions of the same plant paper, and papers made from different parts of the same plant). Gin's stories are wonderful and her instructions are important. But seeing and touching the actual papers are invaluable to the papermaker, and the swatches provide what amounts to a plant paper art gallery as the reader moves from page to page. When I received my copy of A Papermaker's Season, I immediately embarked upon a visual and tactile exploration of every swatch to the end. Reading had to wait until this feast was over. And it was worth the wait. Here's one of my favorite of Gin's descriptions: Cattail seed head paper Cattail heads may contain from 117,000 to 268,000 tiny seeds, each attached to a fluffy parachute. Stripping the heads creates a surprisingly large volume of fluff. Seven or eight large heads will yield a lightly packed two gallon bucket. There may be other surprises as well. The spikes are often home to cattail moths' yellowish white ¼" larvae, which burrow through the rust colored spikes to eat the seeds. Before using or storing the seed heads, it's more or less necessary to do something about the larvae. Some people spray the cattail heads with an insecticide and then enclose them in a plastic bag until the larvae die, but this does nothing to get them out of the heads. Another option is to place the cattail heads in a pan in a preheated 200 degree oven, turn the oven off and leave the heads there overnight. The majority of the larvae will crawl out of the heads and fall to the bottom of the pan where they die. (This process requires an understanding family.) Cattail fluff is a delight to use. It cooks quickly \[soda ash for 30 minutes\] and processes easily in a blender into a fine, smooth pulp. The fluff makes a richly colored paper with a texture much like pigskin. Even if the sheets are pulled thin, they are surprisingly heavy in the hand. The fibers are short, and as a consequence, the paper is not especially strong. Still, it is unique and lovely. Because of the paper's pigskin like texture, it makes an interesting book cover. Gin's papermaking studio is equipped with a small Mark Lander beater, which she uses constantly in her experiments with making paper from plants and to create pulp for works of paper art. However, it may be that her insight for the greatest number of papermakers is how successfully some of these plants fibers can be prepared with a blender. Eighteen of the plants covered in A Papermaker's Season can or should be prepared in a blender, which will serve as very welcome news to those many papermakers who do not have access to a beater but who want to expand their papermaking horizons. On her excellent website (www.ginpetty.com), which also includes with several years of her "Papermaking Journal," Gin tells us that once she was finally through whistlin' and whittling, "there is time to play and enjoy, and freedom to create to please myself." We are thankful that she has shared her experiences with us. Peter Hopkins A Papermaker's Season by Gin Petty - limited to 100 copies, signed and numbered - case-bound, quarter-cloth with complementarycloth sides - printed on natural, linen-textured paper with Canson endpapers - hand-sewn head- and tailbands - 46 single-plant swatches from 25 different plants, each measuring 2 x 3 inches - $200 plus $10 shipping and handling - contact: kygin@ginpetty.com