In March we spent 2 weeks working with artist in residence Vivian Sming on site at Camp Colton, in support of our partnership with Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation. Vivian worked with cotton linter, Thai Kozo, Philippine Gampi, and locally harvested Scotch Broom fibers. She explored Nepalese style papermaking to create large sheets of paper on site in a pond and creek flowing heavy with winter rain and snow melt.

With a background in independent publishing Vivian was working with a variety of fibers and techniques with the goal of making a large scale book. We look forward to seeing how her work evolves at the group exhibition for this program opening at Stelo in November of this year.

This October we spent 2 weeks working with artist in residence Conner Darling on site at Camp Colton, in support of our partnership with Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation. Conner explored local plant fibers such as daylily, comfrey, and canary reed grass for paper fibers. His residency culminated in making a site specific installation. 

Things don't always go according to plan. Sometimes that’s for the best, and other times it isn’t. The ups and downs are part of life, and as small business owners it’s also part of our business. As always, thank you for your continued support and interest as we adapt.

Let’s start off with some updates on the ups - AKA good news! 

• As of this month we have a mobile studio again. YAY!!! If you didn’t see our social media updates about our custom made trailer, here’s the scoop. The trailer was built by Dub Box, has electrical hookups, a small water tank, and a roof that raises and lowers. Having the mobile studio means we can bring our Hollander Beater + Hydraulic Press for making paper pulp from recycled fabrics (like worn out t-shirts) and locally harvested plant materials (like blackberry canes) on site to locations all over the Portland metro region. Thanks to all of you who have donated to help us purchase the trailer, we couldn’t have done it without you!!!

 

• Prior to getting the mobile studio we taught 4 guest workshops this spring/summer. One with the Weaver’s Wheel program at Rewild Portland, one with the Vanport Mosaic Project (and many partners) at the Expo Center, one with the Independent Publishing Resource Center, and one with Wild Diversity and Metro at Howell Territorial Park. At these events we lead participants through making Japanese knotweed paper, recycled paper with varied inclusions, and blackberry seed paper (blackberry plant paper embedded with native plant seeds like camas.) Are you interested in hosting us for a workshop, demo, or talk in 2023? Get in touch! We loved participating in each of these events and hope to do more community building of this kind.

 

• This fall and next spring we are looking forward to our studio co-owner Jenn working with artists in residence through her work with the non-profit org Stelo. She’ll work with a total of 4 artists who will make new handmade paper based art that will be exhibited at Stelo in fall/winter 2023. This is the seventh year of residencies and is a program near and dear to us. 

 

• We’ve made several custom orders of pulp and paper for artists, including cotton rag paper for Emily Kepulis, and kozo pulp for Mami Takahashi, amongst others. We’re about to dive into making palm frond pulp for Jenene Nagy. We’ll continue offering limited custom orders through September, prioritizing orders from artists. Email us at studio@pulpanddeckle.com if you’d like to discuss a potential order of pulp and/or paper. 

 

• Registration is now open for our upcoming workshops focusing on Papermaking for Journals on August 7, and a 2-day Paper from Plants Intensive September 10-11. Both of these classes will be held outdoors at our home in Oregon City, OR and class size is limited. Get all the details at the links.

Now it’s time to relay a few of the challenges we’ve navigated.

• We were very much looking forward to being at the Oregon City First City Celebration this month, and sadly had to cancel due to both Gary and Jenn having covid. We both experienced symptoms and were ill. Thankfully we are recovering and have our fingers crossed that all will work out for us to participate in the 2023 Celebration.

 

• Because of production delays we did not get our mobile trailer as soon as we had hoped this year. This means we’re reducing the amount of workshops we’re hosting for the remainder of 2022. Looking ahead, we’ve decided to focus on workshops as a seasonal offering May through September.​

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• Our online video series has been put on hold. We’ve filmed some pieces of new demos and need to wrap up production. The goal is to share more videos during the winter season when we’re not able to teach workshops. Our mobile studio isn’t fully enclosed when in use and making paper outdoors in the cold rainy weather of an Oregon winter doesn’t work well - we’ve tried it!

Before we go we also want to share our plans to offer a Day of Paper event outdoors at our home on Saturday August 27 from 1-6pm. We’ll have more details about this drop-in event in a few weeks, but wanted to go ahead and get it on your calendars. Attendance will be free with a suggested $10 donation if you participate in  activities like making paper that you can take home. The vibe of the day will be a celebration of paper with mobile studio tours, demos, plant walk, and a general open house feeling. Save the date!

We are so grateful for all of the community support and interest that has kept our studio going. This fall marks our 10 year anniversary. It’s been an amazing journey and we are excited to see what the future holds. 

1. Secure a $3,000 grant from RACC’s Make|Learn|Build program, as well as $5,000 from individual donors, getting us to 62% of our $13,000 fundraising goal for the year.

2. Launch a series of FREE educational demo videos on our YouTube channel.

3. Safely work with artists on a 1-on-1 basis in our home based papermaking studio.
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4. Celebrate our residency partnership with Stelo via the recently opened Coalesce exhibition featuring artwork from the eight 2019/20 artists we worked with in the paper studio.

Thank you for helping to keep the art of papermaking alive and well!
— Gary and Jenn, aka Pulp + Deckle

This year, it's been well, different. Since we began the studio back in 2012, we've had our share of ups and downs. We find ourselves yet again at a crossroads, adapting the studio around external pressures and internal needs.

We'll take stock of the year that was in a moment, but before that we need to share some timely news about some big changes.

First off, we're moving. While we have loved renting a space inside the Disjecta Contemporary Art Center complex for the past 3 years, we have made the difficult decision that we need to move on. We are currently in the process of moving the studio to our home in Oregon City, and have established ourselves as a home based business for the foreseeable future. 

As we shift to being fully home based by Feb 1, 2021, we are adjusting our operations. We've been thinking hard for the past 10 months about our capacity for running the studio while giving our all to our other jobs that pay our bills (Jenn works at the non-profit c3:initiative, and Gary began working at Cash App this July.)

Pulp + Deckle is a labor of love. Our expenses have consistently outpaced our income, and to be honest sometimes (especially this year) it's been tempting to say we should let the business go. But there's still so much we want to do and share via the studio, so rather than close up entirely, we're adapting.

Recently we applied for a forgivable loan for which we did not receive funding. We were hoping to purchase a mobile trailer to house our primary equipment for hosting future  workshops and retail sales pop-ups at outdoor locations. We still have the dream of buying a mobile trailer, but for now we've put that dream on hold while we work on creating income from retail sales.

Our main goals for 2021 are both philosophical and practical. Philosophically we have found this year that our desire to connect our business to the natural world is stronger than ever. Our connection to place, as we have sheltered in place, has only increased. How can we better share our love of the natural world through our business? We'll be trying to answer that question by offering more online demos and workshops that focus on place. We can't wait to begin sharing this content in early 2021.

On the practical side of things we want to earn enough income via retail sales that we can save up funds and buy a mobile studio trailer. We've talked with 3 local sellers who gave us bids for trailers with water tanks, electricity, a retail window, and built in workspaces. The lowest bid is $25,300. Knowing that this is a significant amount of money, it may take us some time to make this dream a reality without putting ourselves at financial risk.

At this time we are not planning any in person engagements with the studio. It is very strange to plan for a year without in person workshops or our annual artist in residence program. While so much uncertainty remains around the safety of gathering in person we feel it's best to not make these types of plans. We hope that by 2022 we can offer workshops in parks, schools, and maybe even our yard. And who knows what new and exciting format the 2022 residency program might take! 

For now we are grateful that we have a garage and a yard where we can make paper and record educational content to share with you. We hope that in pulling back the curtain and telling you all this that it helps clarify the changes we're making. 

Before we wrap this up here's a look back at 2020.

• In February we partnered with Hand Papermaking Inc to host an Open House event
• We hosted a full spring workshop focusing on using recycled textiles for making paper, before having to close the studio to the public and cancel all our other classes.
• We partnered with c3:initiative to safely host 5 artists in residence for the c3: Papermaking Residency. You can scroll back through the blog to see photo highlights of Jenn working one-on-one with each resident.
• We made several custom paper and pulp orders over the spring/early summer at our home. 
• In October we attended our sixth North American Hand Papermakers conference, this year held virtually for the first time. Jenn presented a Pecha Kucha style talk about her 2017 art project, Fruits of the Sun (for all the unknowns.)

It's been a quieter year overall for the studio. We are grateful to have the capacity to evolve and look forward to being in touch with you more regularly in 2021. 

Thanks for your interest and support! We'll be renting a truck to move out of our studio in January and your financial support will help make that process a lot less stressful. If you would like to make a contribution towards the operations of the studio you can make a donation here. 

Be well and take care friends!