Hand Papermaking’s lucky thirteenth themed portfolio of handmade paper was by design meant to inspire broad interpretation. The hope was that the final papers in the portfolio would be thought-provoking and visually compelling art works that formally or conceptually suggested the liminal, the undefined, the unextreme, the marginal, the middling. In the end, our challenge attracted a diverse group of 16 artists from Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and all corners of the United States whose collective 16 paper works, chosen by artist Frida Baranek, are an intriguing record of the creative spirit of these decidedly “in between” times.

To represent the “in between” in paper, some artists worked with layers, building meaningful works of art with unusual juxtapositions and surprising manipulations between multiple couches or applications of pulp. Other artists embedded various fibers or objects, such as delicate weavings of thread, directly and impractically into the paper. Still others made abstract works that challenged the very notion of what paper is. On the whole, the papers in In Between are as strangely beautiful as they are beautifully strange.

The 16 artists of In Between are:
Amalia Avilés-Lugo, Anna Benjamin, Jenna Bonistalli, Elena Bordacconi, Lesa Hepburn, Julie Johnson, Danae Lagoy, Thomas Leech, Stephanie Lerma, Roberto Mannino, Jill Odegaard, Hannah O’Hare Bennett, Sariah Park, Claire Reynes, Jamie Scherzer, Kazumi Seki.

A custom-made clamshell box houses the work, each in a protective folder imprinted with the artists' names. A hand-bound booklet, with letterpress-printed cover, contains statements from the artists, details about each piece, and a commissioned essay by Frida Baranek.