My favorite papermaker Supan Promsen with his niece and a woodblock printed on his paper, 1 x 2 meters
Each day I walk into my studio, and as I look over my work-in-progress, the paper I’ve been painting gives me a thrill. This unique paper is custom-made for my artwork by Supan Promsen, the man pictured above.
But while I like to use old-school art materials, everything else about the work is 21st century. Supan and I communicate by email, in English. He keeps me up to date on the progress of my paper as it’s being made, then FedExes it to me in Australia. I photograph myself and others with a digital camera as we model for my paintings, and use Google to translate text into Chinese, Thai, and Japanese for my current series.
Many times I’ve rued all the stuff it takes to make art. Usually when lugging artwork across town, or moving countries again. Easels and stretcher bars and large-format thick papers take up a lot of room. I’ve often wished I could be content with all my work being purely digital; it would make for lighter luggage, but artwork on an iPad wouldn’t give off that subtle mulberry smell that my paper does. Something like cornstarch. It’s an elixir to a materialist like me.
And that’s what keeps me working with all this stuff: the materials are a crucial part of the process: as I mold them with my ideas and hands, I transform them into art. Or [because nobody interesting agrees on a definition of ART anymore] something like it.
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It’s so cool that you have a relationship with the person who makes your paper. I use handmade paper too, but because it’s so hard to order directly from the people who make it, I order it through a friend of a friend. This post encourages me to try to make contact with the makers of the paper..
I can imagine that adds a whole other wonderful dimension to making your art!
Your woodblock design is gorgeous!
Yes when I work on my paintings, I remember talking to Supan in his studio. We discussed paper weights, philosophy, positive and negative charges [he's a former physics teacher] and papermaking around the world. He was particularly interested in Japanese paper, often considered the finest in the world.
Observing how his workers made paper has given me insight into characteristics of the material I wouldn’t have noticed before. Like, “Oh, that’s where they used the cup to burnish it!” or “Looks like they left this strand of rough mulberry in for character”
Welcome to Travel-Artist, Crafty Green Poet. Yes, knowing the man who made my paper enhances my relationship with aspects of my work.
The woodblock print is beautiful, but unfortunately not mine! It’s done by a Thai artist who exhibited recently at the cultural center in Lampang, northern Thailand, the town where Supan makes his paper. I’ll find out the artist’s name and post it here soon.