Introduction to Papermaking Intensive is a combination of our beginner level Deckle Box Papermaking and our one day Introduction to Papermaking Short Class. Students will learn sheet forming with fibres such as cotton and abaca. We will explore the differences of pulling with a laid mold and a woven mold. Techniques such as laminating, shaped sheets and inclusions will also be introduced, Nepalese style deckle box is covered as well – a high walled mold and deckle, placed in a container of water allowing the pulp to suspend while pulp is dropped and mixed in. This allows individual pulls of different coloured pulp, mixes of different fibres and/or found materials to be part of the final sheet.

Students will leave this course with 20-35 hand-pulled custom sheets of paper and enough knowledge to continue exploring paper at our intermediate level.

Saturday, April 12th and Sunday, April 13th, 2025

2 day class, 5 hours each, 11am - 4pm

Instructor: Emily Cook

or

Saturday, May 24th and Sunday, May 25th, 2025

2 day class, 5 hours each, 11am - 4pm

Instructor: Flora Shum

Artist-Instructor Bios

Emily Cook is an artist who works primarily in handmade paper exploring memory and loss through manipulating the processing of fiber into objects that often look more found than made. She studied printmaking and papermaking at OCAD University and Louisiana State University. Her practice includes book arts, large scale sculpture, and print media. She runs Paperhouse Studio with Flora Shum. As a low vision arts worker, she is active within disability arts and crip culture. She lives in Toronto with a lovely roommate and lots of books.

Flora Shum is a Hong Kong born-Tkaronto/Toronto based artist, educator, and cultural worker. Her artistic practice is experimental and collaborative by nature, with roots in papermaking, printmaking, and book arts, extending to found objects, sculpture, video, and installation. Her art utilizes these mediums to explore alternative histories and archives, alchemy, multiples and multiplicity, and slow labour.

She co-directs Paperhouse Studio (c.2013), where she carries forward the vision for paper as a medium, and leads arts-based programming for underserved communities. She is one half of duo collective—AURA, and Artistic Director of CARFAC Ontario, the association of visual and media artists in Ontario.

Flora has facilitation experience at OCAD University, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto Public Library, University of Toronto, Central Technical School (Toronto, ON.), Peter Pitseolak School (Kinngait, NU.) and Attagoyuk Ilisavik (Pangnirtung, NU.). She has exhibited locally and internationally, including Toronto (ON), Whistler (BC), Hong Kong, and New York (NY).

florashum.com