Paper. It’s one of those things that’s become almost invisible. We live in a digital age, after all. Yet, paper envelopes still arrive in the mail, paper notebooks are still used in classrooms. Paper bags have returned to grocery stores and wallpaper (on the actual wall of a room) has had a similar revival. Print publishing is not dead (having outlived decades of predictions that it would be by now). And I know that I’m not alone in almost always carrying with me a pen and some paper (currently, it’s a tiny notebook with the words “little thoughts” on the cover, which I got years ago from The Regional Assembly of Text in Vancouver).
The photo above, I took inside “Au Papier Japonais” in Montréal (it’s among those included in a brief overview — in English and en français — of a few local paper shops). The history of paper is a long history (see, for example, a summary on this art blog). Other interesting sources of information, if you’re curious: Hand Papermaking magazine, the International Association for Paper Makers and Paper Artists (IAPMA), the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, and you can find paper-making workshops in many cities.
It can be beautiful. The paper.
a few words ... from Montréal 