This compilation of eighteen exceptional works spotlights a broad range of fibers in paper art, and illustrates the unique qualities inherent in papermaking fibers when they are expertly selected,processed, and manipulated by the papermaker. Our distinguished jury (Mary Hark, Helen Hiebert,John Risseeuw, and Beck Whitehead) chose work that features unusual and creative interactions between fibers; reveals the breadth of visual effects of one fiber, even in a single sheet of paper;and demonstrates how fiber can be the primary medium used to create imagery, concept, and content.

So often when appreciating an artwork made with handmade paper we learn only later, perhaps afterreading technical details, that a particular fiber drove the artistic concept. In this portfolio, elegant androbust qualities of fiber are obvious at first glance. Dozens of raw materials were harvested worldwide and transformed into unique statements, from cultivated flax, to wild ragweed stalks, to farmed agave plants, to post-deluge fresh-water algae, to mid-twentieth-century bed linens, to out-of-the-blue bird nests!

A custom-made clamshell box houses the work, each in a protective folder imprinted with the artist’s name. A handbound booklet contains statements from each artist plus an essay by Eugénie Barron, a student and assistant to Douglass Morse Howell in the 1970s. Her insightful articles first appeared in Hand Papermaking magazine over 25 years ago.

Artists in the portfolio, both juried and invited, are: John Babcock, Helmut Becker, Kerri Cushman, Amanda Degener & Bridget O’Malley, Susan Mackin Dolan, Karla Elling, Mary Hark, Helen Hiebert, Ann Marie Kennedy, Susan Kristoferson, Winifred Lutz, Drew Matott & Peace Paper, Andrea Peterson, Robert Possehl, Dianne Reeves, John Risseeuw, Beck Whitehead, and Marilyn Wold.

The portfolio is designed by Steve Miller and edited by Mina Takahashi.

All proceeds from sales of Handmade Paper: Fiber Exposed! benefit Hand Papermaking, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing traditional and contemporary ideas in the art of hand papermaking.

The edition is limited to 150.