Tuesday, August 10, 2010

quote from video

"books are so peculiar in that they're not like paintings where you can just walk into a gallery, touch nothing, and walk out unscathed. books have to be examined. they have to be touched. it's best if you smell them. there's something about that, that intimacy, that connectedness, you just can't curl up with a painting." timothy c ely
shifu books 1 and 3, 2 1/2 inches square by 3/4 inch
i've been spinning kozo from the morgan conservatory today in preparation for making a small piece for their fundraising auction.
kozo: one sheet spun, one sheet open, one sheet being cut
a damaged sheet, too thin sheetformation at the watermark
cut, then the strip is ripped into one continuous thin sheet of paper before spinning
the harvest from three sheets of 11x14 kozo

15 comments:

  1. oh my, my heart skips a beat seeing spun kozo, I have wondered how on earth paper can be made into yarn... thank you

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  2. Velma thank you so much for showing the spun kozo...it is so special and so fragile. Plus I love the shifu books AND the quote - my response to books exactly!

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  3. delishus.
    totally.
    and i agree with the quote. can't cuddle up with a kindle thingy either.
    but
    if the painting were in the form of a soft stitched textile
    you could wrap yourself in it
    whilst inhaling the book

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  4. and before your inner schoolmarm leaps out of my laptop
    i DO
    know how to spell D E L I C I O U S
    just so you know.

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  5. ha!!! thought i teach english it is in a g.e.d. program. i'm happy if they read or write at all, let alone spell! i like your respelling, india, and your wrapping up and inhaling delishus ideas and pictures.

    cathy and fiona, spun kozo is fairly delicate, but once woven into shifu it becomes very strong. the thread on the two books pictured is made of lokta, nepalese paper.

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  6. Oh I really have to try spinning paper... And that's a great quote.

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  7. This is so cool, Velma! I love the shifu book, and the quote.

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  8. I showed your wee shifu square to my class at the Morgan; they loved it (so do I).
    PS - speaking of Scotland (we were at one point) my security word is "nessie"

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  9. barbara, i like your small universe!

    melissa, do you know about "champ"? highlands and islands for me, someday soon! have you seen lotte glob's clay books?

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  10. Velma thanks for making the link between the spun kozo and the shifu books for me - I went back to look again and love them even more

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  11. that's where my current thoughts are--shifu as messenger!

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  12. the cut stripped kozo paper looks very festive

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  13. chinese lanterns!!! (at least that's what we called them in the 60s)

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  14. Velma - At the Morgan, Aimee showed us how she learned to 'hand' spin the kozo paper - which makes it a two ply thread when you are finished. Is it still called shifu if it is plied?

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  15. judy, my understanding is that the japanese shifu is made up of shi (paper) and fu (weaving or woven) so shifu is woven paper. it really isn't the spun (or technically twisted) paper. and of course it was also kozo. aimee's experience is with korean hanji which is made into a two ply cordage specifically for baskets and vessels. i tend to call any of my spun paper shifu which is incorrect until it is woven.

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