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About the Workshops
Cutting Rag
Combat Paper workshops feature processes historically rooted in the traditions of hand papermaking. They are led by experienced facilitators, often hosted by academic institutions and community art centers. The typical workshop follows a five-day format that allow participants to turn their uniforms into paper pulp and then create personal and unique works of paper art from the pulp. We teach participants basic sheet formation using a mould and deckle that can then be used as the basis for creating personal journals, or as a medium on which to write or print personal images or stories. We also expose participants to pulp printing using silk screen images, pulp painting, and basic binding techniques. Depending upon time, group interest and available facilities, we often experiment with pulp casting, large sheet formation, expressive writing and group projects. We've even tried our hand at letterpress printing. Through a series of papermaking and creative exercises, participants are encouraged to express their personal experiences.
The list of combat paper artists continues to grow as we make contact through the papermaking workshops. Not all workshop participants are visual artists. Some are poets; some are writers. Some come simply for the shared experience, to see if the act of pulping their uniform provides a transformational step in their personal quest to maintain control of their lives. A complete list of combat papermakers is updated regularly.
Pulling Sheets
In the spring of 2008 several institutions hosted the Combat Paper Workshops, enabling the project to tour the country. Combat Papermakers from the Green Door Studio conducted the workshops as a means to connect with other Iraq War Veterans through making paper art. The primary focus of the spring tour was to train a team of Los Angeles veterans on how to make paper and conduct workshops, passing the torch from the east to the west coast.
Later that Fall, we conducted workshops on Martha's Vineyard, at Colorado College, Rutgers University and St. Lawrence University.
In 2009, we mounted a month-long exhibit and series of in-gallery workshops at the Firehouse Gallery in Burlington, VT, conducted a United Kingdom Tour as well as veterans' workshops in Cleveland, Savannah, Minneapolis, Madison and San Antonio. And to finish the southern tour, we did an artist residency and exhibit in Key West.
We even managed a stop at the Friends of Dard Hunter annual meeting in Atlanta in October to give a presentation on the Combat Paper Project and a demo of our bicycle powered portable beater in action.
In 2010, we visited Boston, Rochester, Buffalo and Pittsburgh for demonstrations and community lectures and co-taught a graduate course at Ursuline College for art therapists. And we conducted a workshop and residency at the University of Iowa Center for the Book before heading back east to New Jersey and a return to Boston. We were also featured in major exhibits at Harvard and the Newark Public Library during the spring. The fall tour had us at the University of Illinois for a workshop and residency with Soybean Press, plus workshops in Raleigh and Charlotte, NC in November. We finished the fall tour at the University of Alabama for a series of classroom visits and artist residency in November before heading to the New Jersey Vietnam Era Museum.
Our complete schedule is constantly updated on our Workshop & Lecture Tour page. See what's planned for 2011!
Binding Personal Journals
If you wish to host a workshop, contact info@combatpaper.org for further information on how you can participate in the Combat Paper Project.
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