Look for the Openings: Cordage and Community

I recently hosted a cordage gathering at my house with Tanya, a new friend. If you asked me a month ago if this was something on my radar, I would not have any context or reference point aside from a passing interest in cordage. How did I get from there to here?

Hanji, silk, and tule cords and fabric scraps after the cordage gathering

This season I've been trying to look for the openings and go with the flow. One opening was prompted by the kids' annual school Winter Faire, which requires all 1st and 2nd grade families to each donate 30-40 handmade items that are then sold as a fundraiser. I had just been out to Cache Creek Conservancy, where I learned about the work of Diana Almendariz and her community work, cultural work, and craft work with the tule plant. I also had signed up for a tule mat making workshop, to learn about the use of tule for ecological restoration of the wetlands. While at the conservancy with Tanya, she grabbed some tule soaking nearby and showed me how to make a simple cord:

I’ve also been part of an Asian American women & femme circle facilitated by Jayoung Ahn, called Reclaiming Us. During one session, Jayoung led us in a visualization exercise to connect with our lineage: past, present, and future. As a response to this exercise, we were then prompted to create something with our hands. 

[This is actually part of a longer story that still feels raw/sensitive/vulnerable. I share it here with tenderness and also uncertainty with how relevant it is to this post about cordage. Always I worry about taking up unnecessary/excessive space. But this is the beauty of self-publishing my own writings. I can determine how much space I want to give to whatever I want! Still, I'm putting this in brackets... Here is the story: One night last month, I had acute, intense stomach pain so bad that I ended up in the ER. I've lived all my life with chronic stomach pain, but this was unlike anything I had experienced before. After several hours at the ER, the doctor eventually diagnosed me with a UTI and sent me home. By then the pain had subsided. A few days later at my follow-up appointment, my PCP said it was not actually a UTI, but probably "just" a really bad stomach ache. She asked if I was under any stress and suggested dietary changes, but only after I kept prodding her with questions. She got defensive when I questioned the UTI diagnosis, quick to justify the ER doctor's opinion. The whole experience felt surreal, and I questioned if the pain I had experienced was real. Later that week my mom casually mentioned that my paternal grandmother used to have really bad stomach aches, so severe that my dad has strong childhood memories of banging on the neighborhood doctor's door in the middle of the night. Apparently these memories are what inspired my dad to become a physician. I also met with my somatic therapist, who told me that many of her Korean clients suffer chronic stomach pain. (in fact my brothers, my mom and I all suffer from chronic GI issues.) She suggested that this pain could be stuck, unmetabolized grief that is not moving through the body. I share this story with caution and hesitation because my former self (and people currently in my life, including family members) would receive this story with a hard eye roll. I used to defer to Western doctors and medicine as bearers of Truth; now I feel that they are utterly ill-equipped to care for the whole self. I used to feel very little connection to my ancestors; now I feel an opening, a connection to my grandmother, through pain - a visceral pain that I know intimately, that I've known in my body all my life. I used to dismiss the mind-body-spirit connection; now I know that it is true, I grieve for the lost years that I spent completely disconnected to my body and the knowledge and wisdom that it holds.]

That Reclaiming Us session on lineage was a few days after my late-night ER visit. After we did the visualization, I felt compelled to write messages to myself on strips of hanji and then twist and ply the strips into cords. The last time I had made hanji cords in earnest was over 10 years ago at a hanji workshop with Aimee Lee at a book art conference in Oregon. At that time I remember deciding that I would never make hanji cords again because it was too hard / I wasn't good enough at it, even though I enjoyed doing it. But with the image of the tule cord still in my mind, and the experience of making fresh tule cord still in my body, I went with it, as awkward as it felt to revisit this abandoned process with paper. I made a hanji cord and wore it around my wrist that night, and it felt like an opening. 

Hanji cord that I made out of strips with messages that I wrote during the Reclaiming Us session

That night I decided that I would make hanji cord bracelets for the Winter Faire. I had been researching other craft supplies to buy like wooden beads and pom poms to make snowmen or some other typical wintery Waldorf craft, and then thought, why not just make more hanji cords. It's not like I don't have drawers and drawers of hanji, and what better use for it. This would be a good way to practice and I wouldn't have to spend any money. I recalled the last time I visited my hanji teacher Jang Seongwoo with Winnie in 2023. Along with showing us some of his jiseung treasures, he taught Winnie how to knot a bracelet out of hanji cord:

I thought I would just make the cords myself and then have my kids help me dye them. But when I told Winnie the plan, she wanted to learn how to do it. Soon she was quickly making cords, albeit a bit uneven and lopsided, but I know with practice she will someday soon surpass me. 

We worked on the cords over several days during Thanksgiving break and finally had enough to move onto dyeing:

About 50 hanji cords that we made over several evenings

We dyed them different colors: cochineal for pink and orange, red cabbage for blue, 치자 (gardenia fruit) for yellow, and old logwood for brown.

Finished hanji cords: dyed, dried, mordanted with alum, dried, then dyed again

On Thanksgiving day, my mom came over and helped me knot the cords into bracelets while Daniel took the kids out for a couple hours. We sat at the table quietly knotting. I asked her about her hometown (상주, near 대구), about my dad's hometown (a small town near 청주). I shared how we don't observe Korean rituals like jesa, bowing to ancestors, because of Christianity and how as a result, I feel so disconnected from my lineage. I shared how I wish to develop a relationship with my ancestors and we discussed where in my house would be a good place to set up an altar. I treasure that conversation, as much as I grieve the loss of similar conversations with my father, who, pre-stroke, would always oblige when I would ask about his childhood years. The pain I experienced at the ER connected me to my grandmother, to my mother. It was an opening, a door.

After Thanksgiving break, I put all the finished bracelets in a ziplock bag and dropped them off at the front office at my kids’ school. The bracelets looked small and unassuming, with no indication of the manual labor or intergenerational pain that went into their making. It reminds me of the labor and skill required to make strong and delicate sheets of hanji, and then somebody mistaking it for a paper towel. (Yes, this happened to me before.) Does the final product and its end use truly matter? No, and yes. None of it matters, and all of it matters. I think about the local tatreez circles hosted by Dana, a Palestinian tatreez artist. I attended a couple this past year. We were encouraged to bring whatever tatreez we were working on. The point was the power and cultural significance of tatreez as a distinctly Palestinian craft form. The point was the power of gathering in resistance, using our hands to stitch and our bodies to support one another in community. My tatreez work is beginner-level, it is not high craft, but it is important, it elicits joy, and it tells a story.

Winnie smiling and running in her hanbok at her school’s Winter Faire

Post-election, I decided to offer a couple free community gatherings at my house. I felt a strong urge to gather with others, to share and not hoard my knowledge. To offer a space of skill sharing, connection, and mutuality. It felt important and necessary. The first gathering led to a beautiful papermaking day which I wrote about here. The second gathering was all about cordage, and I invited Tanya to share about tule cordage and her own experiments with making cord out of silk and other materials.  

Twelve of us gathered and shared about cordage from various cultures. Tanya brought silks that she dyed the night before along with a generous pile of fabric scraps. She shared about the Tending and Gathering Garden at Cache Creek Conservancy and her relationship with Diana and tule. We experimented with making cords out of various materials, including flax paper, fabric scraps, giant wool off cuts, even recycled produce bags. I shared how to cut down hanji into strips and how to twist and ply the strips into cords. We dyed our hanji cords with walnut dye that Michelle had brought. It was experimental play, it was joyful and meaningful work. I am thankful for the openings this season that have led me on this path. I believe it has been for my healing and growth, and I continue to listen and look for the signs, starting with my own hands, my own body.  

Hibiscus and Milkweed Floss Papermaking As Liberatory Practice

After gathering, trimming, steaming, stripping, drying, weighing, and storing the hibiscus and milkweed from September, I had no intention of processing it for papermaking this year. I tend to close down the papermaking studio at the end of the summer and focus on indoor activities. But then after a series of "events," I found myself hosting a late-November outdoor papermaking session, and now I am hooked on Fall/Winter papermaking. I suppose that is one of the benefits of living in California, and in many ways the cool crisp air is much more preferable to work in than the unbearable, dry summer heat. 

Finished sheets of paper made from hibiscus stalks, milkweed stalks, and milkweed floss. This image also includes raw hibiscus and milkweed materials used to make the sheets, as well as the bamboo screens used to form the small sheets.

I say "events" in "quotes" because they were more like subtle, internal shifts (for the most part). I’ll share three:

1. Meeting and learning about the work of Diana Almendariz and spending time at the Tending and Gathering Garden at Cache Creek Conservancy, an org that works on habitat restoration and environmental education in the Cache Creek area of Yolo County. I learned of this work through Esme and Tanya, two enthusiastic local makers who have become my dear friends. Through these connections I feel empowered to share, not hoard, what I know. I often tend to downplay what I know for so many reasons, but I am realizing more and more how rare and special it is to hold this knowledge and how crucial it is to pass it on to others.

2. Attending the NAHP conference in Denver and revisiting the work of Cecile Webster, who has thoroughly studied and made paper with many plants in her region. At first I felt the urge to give up my own research, thinking that it had already been done. But in talking with Mina Takahashi, she gently urged me to keep investigating plants for papermaking in my local ecosystem, how this highly localized work needs to keep going, wherever we are.

3. The election. Rather than sink into despair, I thought about what I could offer, what small thing I could do. I saw this list from Mariame Kaba and realized that gathering to make things together is deeply powerful, necessary, and liberatory. Offering people a way to interact directly with natural materials, and witness/bring forth their transformation, is profound and healing. If anything, I need this for myself, and I long to do this in community.

And so, I invited some folks to come out for a community papermaking session, working with the hibiscus and milkweed that we had harvested back in September. Our family was not traveling for Thanksgiving, so I had time to do all of the necessary prep work: soaking, scraping, cooking. Here’s the hibiscus:

I also soaked and cooked the milkweed floss that Esme had separated for me, and already I could tell that this was way different than the floss I worked with earlier this year. This time I cooked it in 20% soda ash for 1 hour, per Joanne Rich's advice. As Aimee mentions in her milkweed zine, the soda ash seems to color the fiber yellow:

On Papermaking Day (the Saturday after Thanksgiving), folks came in the morning to scrape raw hibiscus bark, rinse cooked hibiscus, beat milkweed floss and half of the hibiscus, and rinse cooked milkweed bark.

The hibiscus was quite stringy, like clumps of hair… we took half of the cooked hibiscus, cut it up into one-inch pieces, loaded it into the Reina beater, and processed it for about 20 minutes.

Cutting this large clump of hibiscus felt like cutting tangled hair.

Pulps we processed on Saturday, from left to right, top row: milkweed floss - handbeaten, milkweed stalk - partially handbeaten; from left to right, bottom row: hibiscus stalk - handbeaten, hibiscus stalk - Hollander (mechanically) beaten

In the afternoon we made paper:

We also made some paper sculptures! Esme brought a pinata she made out of stripped milkweed cores, and covered the bottom with floss paper that she formed and then wrapped onto the cores, with the help of papermaker + artist Michelle. Check out the finished work here and work-in-progress here:

And Kevin made a wire armature and formed sheets of dak and hibiscus to wrap around the form, to create a lantern shade (also with the help of Michelle):

An experimental paper lantern shade made of copper wire and dak/hibiscus paper. A future workshop, perhaps?

The following day I soaked some of the milkweed floss paper and combined it with the leftover pulp to reprocess in a blender. I had a hard time getting it to break down in the blender, it was so stringy. Next year I want to try processing fresh milkweed floss properly in the beater.

I finally was able to make some sheets that were a little less stringy than the 100% hand beaten floss.

Pressed sheets of milkweed floss paper, drying on a board. The pulp was hand beaten for an hour and then processed in a blender.

Milkweed floss paper formed with a tiny sugeta

Deeply grateful for these opportunities to gather, transform, collaborate, and share. Also grateful to folks who shared knowledge about processing these plants, through resources they have published or conversations we’ve had along the way: James Ojacastro, Helen Hiebert, Joanne Rich, Aimee Lee, Velma Bolyard, Jenna Bonistalli. Thank you for putting your knowledge out into the world.

Curiosity + Experimentation: Processing Hibiscus + Milkweed (Revisited)

I knew I wanted to harvest milkweed again this year, so Esme, Michelle and I head out to Hedgerow Farms in early Sept - earlier in the season than last year’s harvest. As usual, the timing wasn’t great - it was short notice and I scrambled to get the word out to folks who had expressed interest in participating - but we were subject to the whims of the farming season over which we had no control.

Esme and I arrived first and went straight to the milkweed field…but alas, the milkweed was nowhere to be found.

Me texting our friend Julia from Hedgerow to inquire, where did the milkweed go? On the left is hibiscus, on the right is where the milkweed was supposed to be.

After getting in touch with Julia and roaming around the farm, we finally spotted the tall milkweed plants from afar, in a completely separate field.

We gathered two large bags of milkweed stalks. Before heading back, I kept thinking about the hibiscus plants in the field next to the original milkweed field (which, we learned, had just been cleared out before we got there). Esme told me the hibiscus was called Hibiscus lasiocarpos var. occidentalis, of the Malvaceae family, like mallow, hibiscus, okra, hollyhock, and cotton. I learned that this hibiscus is a rare species from wetland habitats in the Delta, native to the Central Valley. Out of curiosity, we decided to gather some.

We brought the plant material back to my house, and for a couple weeks thereafter, I hosted work sessions to trim, bundle, steam, and strip the stalks. I borrowed a propane tank and large pots from Jamie Cardenas, and enlisted the help of Michelle, Esme, Elizabeth, Molly, Julia, Nana, and Winnie.

Some observations on stripping the bark: Hibiscus seemed to strip okay after soaking for several days, even without steaming - though steaming did help. The hibiscus was slimy - water used to soak the hibiscus could probably be used as a formation aid, though I didn’t try it.

The milkweed had more white sap this time, probably because we harvested earlier in the season this year. Milkweed was also more difficult to strip than last year, even after steaming. One time I forgot to soak before steaming - soaking is crucial. As an experiment, I left some milkweed stalks out to ferment for a couple weeks, and ended up stripping those stalks without steaming. It worked just fine.

After drying out the stripped bark, I weighed and stored everything. We ended up with a little over a pound (dry weight) of milkweed and 1.5 pounds of hibiscus bark.

We also gathered about a bucket of milkweed pods, which Esme offered to take home and separate the seeds from the floss. I felt pretty defeated after my first attempt at papermaking with the floss, so I didn't think much of it, but when Esme came back a few weeks later with a container filled with silky white stuff, I knew I had to try it again.

A container of dreamy white milkweed floss

Every part of this process has been a balm to my nervous system, an invitation to look closely, to slow down, yet keep moving. I am in awe and deep gratitude for this collaboration with plants and land, and for how this draws me closer to myself and others. To be continued...

Milkweed Paper At Last

It was incredibly fulfilling to process the milkweed into pulp and then form it into sheets, though I tried to hold it all loosely and not get too attached to any expected results. The beautiful milkweed floss that we processed in the beater and formed into sheets on Sunday, completely fell apart upon unloading from the dry box, each soft spongy sheet easily broken. It was basically fluff compressed into the form of a sheet, ready to turn back into a cloud, forcing me to indeed, hold it loosely:

Various milkweed paper samples. The ball of crumpled paper on the bottom right is milkweed floss paper that wanted so badly to go back to being soft and fluffy

Although Aimee says in her zine that cooking the fluff is not required, I thought that maybe even a light cook would somehow help keep the sheets from falling apart. I also thought maybe I didn't beat it well or long enough, so I also tried to re-beat some of the fluff that had been soaking for a couple days. Re-beating the fluff proved quite difficult; I could tell the beater was struggling and the buoyancy was out of control. I had to really push the fiber along manually, otherwise it would not circulate. I gave up and tried making sheets with the uncooked and "rebeaten" fluff anyway; results were similar to the first batch but perhaps slightly less fragile.

Super buoyant milkweed floss very slowly moving through the beater

I had better luck with the cooked fluff pulp, which I cooked with a tiny bit of soda ash (~3 or 4%). I pulled some sheets with the cooked pulp, and also tried re-beating it and then pulling sheets. Results between the two were similar, leading me to believe that somehow the cooking is what helped.

Descriptions from Aimee's zine and images of the rattly, translucent paper coming out of Atelier de Papier make me wonder why my results were so... the opposite of rattly and translucent. The milkweed fluff sheets that I made were, at best, still soft and a bit spongy. I had the best results from mixing in a bit of the bast fiber with the fluff pulp, which gave the sheets a bit more stability. I'm wondering if the presence of so much extraneous plant matter (like bits of seeds and cores) somehow changed the nature of the finished sheets, or if it has something to do with how “fresh” the floss is - when it comes right out of the pod, it’s so silky, but when it’s been sitting in piles outside for weeks, it turns more fluffy and behaves more like cotton. This is just pure observation and I have no scientific backing to explain how the material transforms even before processing, causing the resulting paper to be totally different. I honestly don’t know.

A pressed, wet sheet of milkweed fluff paper before loading it into the dry box

The bast fiber, on the other hand, was a dream to work with. I knew after making the little test sheets on Sunday that I wanted to try to make larger webal sheets from the stalks. I cleared out my schedule for Tuesday morning. Thanks to my kids' school schedule, I was up and ready to work by 7:30am and had pretty much exhausted the vat and cleaned everything up by noon. It still fills me with so much wonder and gratitude that I am able to make webal hanji in my own backyard. I often feel the urge to invite people over when I make webal hanji since it is so rare and special. But this time I needed to be alone, I needed a sacred space and receive it as a gift, for me. (Plus, who would be available on a random Tuesday morning…probably no one)

Scraped milkweed stalk pulp

I wrote in my journal the next day: "I wake up thinking about the paper." Some images of webal milkweed hanji, from sheetforming to parting to drying to finished sheet (notice the difference in color between scraped and unscraped milkweed fibers):

A week later I was fortunate to return to my alma mater UICB and make some prints on the milkweed paper I had made. These prints are special, they are studies of folded paper maps, which I will one day turn into little books. I rarely get to develop and execute finished works, I feel like I am percolating and testing new ideas, teaching, sharing, making quick studies then moving on to the next thing. These days I am more interested in making spaces of discovery, community, collaboration, and connection through plants and cultural heritage and craft. Whether or not it results in a finished product feels besides the point, and miraculous when it does happen. In the meantime, I'm letting most of these prints sit in a flat file until they are ready to be folded into books someday.

image on left is printed on dak hanji I made a few years ago; image on right is printed on milkweed hanji I made the week before

A proof print on “mystery dak hanji” (mysterious dak that I found in my fridge and threw into the webal vat and formed into sheets) dyed with persimmon juice. These prints are meant to be folded up into little pocket maps, inspired by ancient Korean maps of the universe. Someday I will edition these… someday… 

Milkweed: A Gift from the Ancestors

For readers who are following along on my milkweed journey, you may recall that the milkweed stalks were stripped, dried, weighed, and then stored away in Oct 2023. I usually close up my papermaking studio in October, so by the time I had finished processing all of the milkweed, I wasn't able to actually use it for papermaking right away. For months I would occasionally glance longingly (more like guiltily) at the pile of milkweed fibers, wondering if and when I would ever get to it, like so many other piles lying around in my studio, gathering dust. 

2024 has been a year full of transition, grief, soul searching, care giving, pausing, waiting. The crisis and the aftermath. The dropping of everything, the hyper vigilant mode, and then the slow rebuilding and picking up of the pieces. All summer long I continued to neglect the piles around my studio, all summer long they sat there patiently. There is an urgency to process the fresh milkweed stalks right after harvest, to work quickly and preferably in community, to get it all stripped and dried out before it spoils. But then there is a generously long period when the fibers are stored away, unbothered by the passage of time, comfortable in their dried state and in no hurry yet ready and patiently waiting.

If there is anything I've learned this summer from working with milkweed, and life in general, it is - milkweed is the gift that keeps on giving. And: if something is meant to be, it will happen in its own time, when it needs to happen. And: when life places a gift in your path, you move in that direction towards wherever you are most fully aware of the gift, the gift of being alive to the gift.

On Friday, the kiddos and I worked on sorting the dried stalks into two piles: Pile 1 was “too far gone so not going to touch it” (lots of black spots) and Pile 2 was “somewhat clean, just requires a light scrape to get it to very clean.” I then soaked both piles overnight.

On Saturday, Esme came over to help scrape the milkweed stalks in Pile 2. I had initially intended to scrape them all, but forgot that everything takes 3x longer than expected. I decided to scrape as much as I could and ended up adding whatever I didn’t get to to Pile 1. I cooked each pile separately in soda ash (15%) for 2-3 hours - I actually forgot about them on the stove and worried that I had overcooked them. But it turned out to be just fine.

Pile 1 (unscraped bast) at the top, Pile 2 (scraped bast) at the bottom

The next day (Sunday) I hosted several Korean diasporic artists who came up from the Bay Area, along with Michelle, a dear papermaking friend. I was eager to share space with these souls, eager to witness together the milkweed transformation with fellow makers. Jane and Meesha arrived first and spent the morning picking out large bits of plant matter from the milkweed fluff.  Dust masks were necessary:

More friends arrived, and we took turns hand-beating the cooked stalk fiber:

Then we loaded up the Hollander beater with the fluff. We didn't pre-soak the fluff, and it was about 1lb total, so in retrospect - I don't think the fluff was properly beaten at all, though I did somehow manage to lower the roll and have the fluff circulate for about 5 minutes. More on this later...

Then we set up for papermaking: a few small vats to make fluff paper, scraped bast paper, and unscraped bast paper, using the tiny baby sugetas. At another table, Michelle masterfully pulled larger sheets of ssangbal hanji (aka nagashizuki-style washi) out of the fluff fiber, which we had in abundance. And a third table had a deckle box, where Jane experimented with mixing fluff and bast fibers together in a single sheet. 

It all was quite experimental and low key, no expectations of mastery, just an openness to learning and helping and being together. I appreciated the conversations around "Korean American art" - what makes something "truly Korean" or "Korean enough". We are, all of us KA artists in the diaspora, grappling with this in some way, I believe. I think about this a lot with my own work, knowing that so much of what I make and who I am would not really be understood or accepted in Korea or among first generation or conservative Korean circles. I keep coming back to this talk that my KAAC friends Jeff and Rochelle gave, about inhabiting the edge of the diaspora, and all of the unexpected joy and creative potential and community that exists in that marginal space. More and more I realize that there is power in claiming that which was passed down to me by my ancestors, despite the unlikely form that it becomes through me. Somehow the milkweed draws me closer to these truths that I know, I can recognize that the milkweed was a gift from my ancestors, telling me to keep going.

Pressed sheets of milkweed samples, drying on a board

In the next installment of the milkweed adventures, I'll share more about the initial milkweed paper tests, the subsequent adjustments that I made, along with the dreamy experience of forming the milkweed bast fiber into webal hanji sheets.

I want to pause to give thanks to Julia at Hedgerow Farms, Esme the friend who connected us, all of the friends who came to help process the milkweed, Aimee Lee for writing and publishing the invaluable milkweed zine, Velma for the milkweed chapbook and ongoing encouragement, Jenna B for the samples and enthusiasm, Radha and other papermaking friends who provided tips along the way, ACTA for the support through a Living Cultures grant which allows me to do this work and share it with others.

Processing Milkweed Together

A long overdue post on Part 2 of my milkweed adventure, which took place in October 2023.

It took about a week to process the trunk full of milkweed stalks that I had harvested from Hedgerow Farms. Since the stalks were fresh, I knew I had a narrow window of time in which to work. I enlisted the help of Winnie, Gaboo, and Deb. First we sorted the stalks and cleaned off extraneous leaves, and trimmed the stalks to a uniform size. This work took about a day and a half:

It was amazing to work with this fresh plant material, still so full of life:

Milkweed floss and seeds from inside a pod.

The next step was steaming. I went to several restaurant supply places to look for a giant steamer, and managed to cobble together a steaming apparatus using the largest pot I could find plus a makeshift steamer basket. I realized that the size of the stalks needed to be cut down to whatever size the steaming apparatus could hold, so had to trim stalks even further to fit inside the pot. My initial setup was short (~10”) stalks in bundles, lying down in the steamer. For this first day of steaming and stripping, we got help from new friends Sky and Tianyi. I had met Sky at one of the Korean diaspora hanji workshops, and thankfully their flexible schedule allows for them to show up on a random weekday:

short bundles of milkweed stalks, inside the steamer

close-up of the stalk layers while stripping from the core

Tianyi demonstrating how to strip the outer layer of the stalk from the core, which is considerably easier once it has been steamed for about an hour.

The following day, I had the pleasure of hosting Alyssa and her partner Adam, who both eagerly took part in the milkweed processing. They live in NC but were on vacation in CA. Alyssa is a friend that I met at Penland a few months prior; here is a pic of us from Penland, May 2023:

look at us, so carefree in the Penland field

It is such a joy to be around other craft people, making discoveries, taking delight in what natural materials yield, sharing techniques and experiments. Alyssa tends to ferment her plant material for papermaking (as opposed to steaming) which I tried but failed to follow through. Maybe next year.

Above is a photo of Alyssa showing off the silky bast, which is the key ingredient for papermaking, holding tons of cellulose.

I tried a different steaming method, a pot on the bottom and an upside-down pot at the top as a lid, with aluminum foil to fill in the gap in the middle, so that we could keep the stalks longer and upright. It seemed a bit more hazardous and unstable and haphazard, at least the way I set it up, though I do think if I had a bigger pot I would much prefer for the stalks to stand upright.

I like this photo that Alyssa captured of me behind the asparagus-looking milkweed stalks. It looks like I’m dancing, but most likely I’m trying to figure out how to get the hot lid back on without burning myself.

A few days later, a couple more local friends Esme (the one who originally connected me to Hedgerow Farms) and Talon, a new Korean American friend, came to help with the last of the stripping:

Talon stripping stalks while Esme tries scraping

Here are all the ways that the stalks looked in various stages of “doneness” (either freshly stripped, laying out to dry, hanging to dry):

From left to right: stalks that have yet to be steamed and stripped, woody cores in the middle, stripped stalks, ready to be hung to dry on the right

I remember it rained that weekend, as you can see by the gray clouds rolling in below. I think I had left the milkweed out to hang despite the rain, and perhaps that is why so much of the milkweed stalks developed mold/black spots in the drying out process. I’m not sure.

Winnie tending to the milkweed stalk bundles

Eventually I dried out all of the stalks and weighed them - approx 28 oz, or 1.75 lb. I stored them away in my studio, where they sat for many months. My next post will cover the next phase of processing the milkweed, which took place in the summer of 2024.

Milkweed Field of Dreams

Last month was Sac Open Studios - it was my first time registering as a participant and I was eager to connect with local folks and feel a bit more grounded here in Sacramento. But unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts I had to fly to DC the same weekend and so was absent from Open Studios, which meant that my studio was open but I was not there. It felt like a wasted opportunity, but I still had faith that something good would come from it - and sure enough, something really good manifested this past week.

A local artist named Esme had visited my studio and bought some hanji while I was out of town. After I returned from DC, Esme reached out again to buy more hanji, so I got to meet her in person. We chatted for maybe 5 minutes, during which time I shared how it would be a dream to find alternative, native plant material to make paper. She mentioned that she knew somebody who works at a local farm that grows milkweed for seed, and said she would put us in touch via email. A couple weeks later, I was driving to Winters to meet with Julia, an ecologist at Heathrow Farms.

Julia holding cut-up plant fiber with seeds mixed in with sticks and grass. This mix needed to be processed through their machinery to separate out the seeds, which are then sold for ecological restoration projects across the state.

Julia kindly showed me the production facility at Heathrow Farms, where they sell seeds to local restoration projects across the state of California. It was fascinating to see all these machines which were basically like giant mechanized sieves that separated out the seed from the chafe. The very kind farmers turned the machine on so I could see it in action.

Julia showing me milkweed stems that had been cut up for compost - she thought this is what I wanted to use for papermaking.

Julia found some milkweed stalks that had been cut up for compost and thought that this was what I wanted to use for papermaking. I had brought a sample of a dak branch which helped her to see that I wanted the stalk intact. Meanwhile we visited another part of the farm, and came across a beautiful fluffy field of milkweed floss that another farmer was processing for seed.

Mountains of fluffy milkweed floss

Julia jumping in a field of milkweed floss - she couldn’t help herself

Then we hopped in my car and drove down the road to another part of the farm so Julia could show me the milkweed field. I was prepared to just snap a few pics and maybe take one small sample home. But upon arrival, Julia realized that the milkweed had already been processed - the seed pods were removed and what was left was a field of stalks, which were no longer of use to the farm.

Me, giddy with excitement, holding a sickle in front of the milkweed field

Julia called the farm manager and found out that they were going to clear out the field that afternoon, and said I could go ahead and take as many stalks as I wanted. I was totally unprepared to spend the morning harvesting milkweed, so we drove back to the farm headquarters and I borrowed gloves and a sickle, and got some water. Thankfully I had packed a hat and sunglasses and a banana for sustenance. I also had brought Aimee’s zine, Making Milkweed Paper, which I was referencing with religious fervor all morning.

I felt so much gratitude for being out in that field, and marveled at how the universe granted my wish. My friend Lisa always reminds me that it’s important to set your intentions, and that the universe conspires to make your dreams come true.

It was super hot that day, and I worked for about 2 hours before calling it quits. After gathering all the stalks, I glanced out at the field which looked like I hadn’t even touched it. Here’s a photo of my haul when I got home:

I’ve been working through the following two resources, along with text messages from various papermaking friends (Michelle, Aimee, Radha) who have given me tips on how to process all of this material. Though I’ve participated in past dak harvests at Oakdale (the papermaking production facility at Iowa) I’ve never actually steamed dak or any other bast fiber myself, so I am grateful for any advice I can get.

I also wasn’t planning to be harvesting and processing all of this plant material this week. But I am super grateful to Hedgerow Farms for so generously sharing this bounty, and excited for future collaboration with the farm. This year will be very experimental and I will test to see how all of this pans out, and if all goes well it would be great to coordinate with the farm next year and organize a proper harvest and hopefully involve more folks in the process. Meanwhile I’ll post again to share how all of this gets processed this week and hopefully made into paper; stay tuned.

소원, Hope: Hanji Workshop #4 Recap

The final hanji workshop was a wonderful and diverse gathering of energetic, inquisitive individuals who were eager to share, learn, and experience hanji.

Me in my studio during the orientation. Photo courtesy of Roger Kim.

For this workshop, I added dak scraping to the list of stations (in addition to beating and sheetforming). Participants seemed to really enjoy using the dak knife to scrape the layers of bark. This is one of the most laborious and tedious and time-consuming steps of preparing dak for hanji-making. For some reason this workshop had an inordinate number of older Korean women participants, and somehow it seemed fitting to see many of them sitting on the floor, chatting and laughing while scraping dak.

One of my favorite moments was when I talked about how natural formation aid comes from smashing the roots of a plant called hibiscus manihot, which releases a slimy, viscous mucilage that gets added to the vat. Afterwards, a participant asked if you could add marshmallows to the vat as a formation aid. I imagined opening a bag of marshmallows and emptying it into the vat and mixing it around. At some point while attempting to answer her question, I realized she was talking about the marsh mallow plant, not marshmallows the food. 

After the hands-on portion of the workshop, participants went inside, had snacks, and filled out surveys. Then we went around the room and participants could choose to share an answer to one of the survey questions with the group. One participant shared her answer to the question, "Do you have an object, food, song, memory, word, something that is meaningful to you that connects you to your Korean heritage? What is it and why is it meaningful to you?" The memory she shared was a song, which she sang for us: "우리의 소원은 통일" which translates to "Our hope is in reunification." She shared how she grew up in Korea in the 70s and remembers singing this song every day at school, how this longing for reunification was very much present and alive as she had family in North Korea. I had recently watched the documentary Crossings which a member of my art collective, Coleen, had recommended (she was a member of the delegation organized by Women Cross DMZ). Hearing this song and reflecting on the efforts for peace that activists, especially women, have been advocating for a long time, stirred something in me despite I myself not having any family in North Korea. The stark reality of an ongoing war and militarization of the peninsula, and US complicity in this reality, is an undeniable component of our identity as members of the Korean diaspora. 

Pile of dak + hanji leftovers generated during workshops

As this was the final hanji workshop of the series, I am now sitting (metaphorically and literally) with piles of hanji generated during the workshops. My heart, head, and arms are full. I’m grateful to the City of Sacramento Office of Arts + Culture for the opportunity to work on this project, and hopeful for more support to continue this work. So much gratitude for every single participant who came through with their whole hearts and believed in the significance of this experience.

I'll continue to post on this blog with reflections and updates on this project; for now, I am turning my attention to other projects, namely an upcoming show with aforementioned KAAC. I am working hard to finish my piece for the exhibit. As I work on this piece, which involves long periods of hand-stitching, I carry all of these experiences in my heart and infuse them in my work, in all that I do, in my very being. This is at least my intention and hope.

On Generosity and Free Gifts: Hanji Workshop #3 Recap

I am always struck by who comes out to these hanji workshops, and why. This weekend I was particularly struck by the diversity of the Korean diaspora represented at the gathering, and had a moment of sheer amazement and gratitude that this group was sharing space in my home.

In this group we had Koreans who were born in Korea, Koreans who grew up in Korea, Koreans who were adopted, Koreans who were raised in mostly white neighborhoods, Koreans who are mixed race, queer Koreans, trans Koreans, young Koreans, older Koreans. Koreans who had never been to Korea; Koreans who longed for the Motherland. We had a Korean baker, a doctor, a ceramicist, a photographer, a mixed martial artist, a curator. We all shared a common desire to explore our Korean identity through craft and community. As I keep doing these workshops I realize how rare and special it is to host spaces such as these.

Thanks to friends and community members who came out to assist before and during this workshop: Deb, who beat the dak; Rana, who stirred and assisted at the webal vat; and Stella, who documented throughout and took these wonderful portraits (above) of all the participants from the workshop. I should also thank my daughter Winnie too, who participated in the workshop but also wanted to keep her position as Deckle Box Specialist:

I think a lot about my choice to make these workshops free for participants. Yes I received grant funding from the City of Sacramento, but the funding does not cover the entirety of the offerings. I have been thinking a lot about the concept of gift-giving and revisiting "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde: "For most artists, the actual working life of art does not fit well into a market economy." What is the alternative, especially given the high cost of living here in California? I have been wrestling and working through this question a lot this year. Part of this work involves making observations, and one thing I observed especially after this past workshop was how much I received in exchange for what I offered for free. Participants brought physical gifts of homemade granola, jam, maesil syrup, and scones. Friends freely offered labor and time. Everybody generously shared their responses to survey questions and participated in the group discussion, each story a gift. 

How can we reimagine the practice and commerce of art as a gift exchange? To be continued…

Natural Dye Workshop at Fibershed: June 25, 2023

Last month I had the opportunity to take a natural dye workshop at Fibershed, a wonderful non-profit org that I learned about from my papermaking friend and colleague Michelle Wilson. I was excited to learn about harvesting plants for color, and particularly wanted to learn about the native plants here in California that could be used for papermaking and dyeing. After spending some time at Fibershed, I realized I have barely scratched the surface and have a long way to go in my exploration.

The instructor’s dyed samples

Our teachers, Heidi and Allison, were both founding and/or early members of Fibershed and knew a ton about natural dyeing. We started by looking at Heidi’s samples and dye journal. I had brought some paper that was made at the hanji workshop the day before, and was excited to create color samples on hanji.

After looking at samples, we took a walk around the beautiful grounds. I was inspired by the instructors' knowledge of all the different plants and how to harvest them for color. We walked by rows of Japanese indigo plants, though we did not dye with indigo at the workshop.

We came back to the main classroom area and the instructors worked on creating dye baths from the freshly cut plants. They also showed us the dye baths that they had previously prepared. There were 7 or 8 different dye baths; I was impressed by the instructor's excitement and eagerness to prepare many different colors, though I was also pretty overwhelmed by the number of dyes as well as different types of samples. They were quite challenging to keep track of and required careful labeling, color-coding, and note-taking. Altogether we dyed with acacia, marigold, cochineal, loquat leaves, horsetail, redwood cones, eucalyptus, and mugwort.

After lunch we began submerging our fabrics (and paper) into the various dye baths:

Workshop participants hanging their dyed samples to dry

It was a very windy day and somewhat damp and chilly. Another workshop participant also brought papers to dye; our colored samples billowed in the wind and took a bit of time to dry between applications:

At the end of the workshop the instructors allowed us to take home leftover dye. I eagerly took home a liter of each dye that produced the best results on my paper samples. Unfortunately after I got home, I was super busy and unable to use the dyes right away, and then traveled for 3 weeks. By the time I got back home, most of the dyes had gotten moldy. Still, I used a couple liters to dye some thai dak pulp in walnut leaf dye and redwood cone dye, as well as cochineal, in preparation for the upcoming hanji workshop.

It was super satisfying to know that so many local and native plants produce color. As for so many crafts with centuries of tradition, I wish I had more time to dedicate to deepening my knowledge of and experience with natural dyes. My hope is that this endeavor will happen organically as we settle into our home in Sac and establish a garden in our backyard. I also look forward to sharing this exploration with my kiddos. 

My dyed paper, fabric, and thread samples from the workshop.

I was happy to turn off my instructor brain and allow myself to enjoy being a student, though the experience reiterated for me how much the labor and value of teaching workshops, on top of the vast expertise and years of experience that so many craft instructors carry and share, is figuring out working instructional methods and streamlining and preparing and balancing and creating a conducive learning environment, all within a limited timeframe. From personal experience I know that anything beyond the bare minimum (which is already a lot of labor) is pure gift. Deep bows of gratitude to Heidi and Allison, and all of my previous workshop and class instructors that I’ve ever learned from.

"I didn't understand a word. But I felt safe": Hanji Workshop #2 Recap

Another wonderful workshop today with a new group of Koreans, this time mostly local folks from Sacramento.

Some especially magical moments during today's workshop:

One participant spent the majority of the time working on a piece of dak lace which she embedded into a sheet made with dyed pulp in the deckle box. She spent a long time working on this sheet! Can't wait to see how it turns out once it is dry.

Two members of the Korean American Artist Collective joined today's workshop. One member came all the way from DC, while the other came from SF with her mom. Fostering this community of Korean American artists has been a project near and dear to my heart, though mostly the community building has taken place virtually. It was very special to be together in person.

I tried two new things for today's workshop: one was a new webal screen (that I purchased on Amazon) and the other was dyed pulp (which I wrote about in the previous post). 

The Amazon screen was a fail - the pulp did not settle on the screen evenly, and I could not couch (transfer the sheet off the screen) consistently. I will write more about the Amazon screen in a separate future post. because it is turning into a SAGA. 

As for the dyed pulp, it was great! I'm looking forward to experimenting with more dyes and coloring pulp again for the next workshop. 

Though my mom was supposed to translate portions of the workshop into Korean and had spent a long time preparing notes, she sort of bailed at the last minute. Ironically during the sharing time towards the end, one participant shared in Korean and I wondered if we needed somebody to translate into English. Though my Korean is not great (see previous post), I knew enough to recognize some key words like 그리움 (longing) and 사랑 (love). 

On that note, here is another survey response that resonated with me. The question was, “Do you have an object, food, song, memory, word, something that is meaningful to you that connects you to your Korean heritage?”

The Limitations of Language. Also, Dyeing Pulp.

For the next hanji workshop which is coming up soon, I offered to have a translator on site. The translator is my mom. She is nervous about translating and asked me to write a script of what I am going to say. I am realizing how much work necessarily goes into making community events more accessible and inclusive.

I made it pretty clear from the beginning that these workshops overall would take place in English. My Korean sucks and I have been on quite a journey in my relationship with my language skills or lack thereof. It used to fill me with such shame and embarrassment (and still sometimes does). As a perfectionist it is hard for me to practice the language when I know I am not speaking 100% accurately or naturally. I see that in my daughter too - the unwillingness to try for fear of making mistakes - and I wish for her sake that I would just overcome my shyness and performance anxiety and try to speak Korean. That said, there’s no way I could adequately express everything in Korean for this workshop, and I am okay with that. I have since met loads of diasporic Koreans who are like me, mourning the loss or lack of Korean language ability, coming to terms with it in various ways, making efforts here and there (or not). My kids are in Korean camp this summer and I am hopeful that at least their exposure to the language and culture will instill in them a love of their heritage, and that they would be filled not with shame but with pride, curiosity, and a sense of home.

Other preparations this week (aside from the translation) involved mordanting and coloring dak with natural dye. During last week’s workshop, we brush-dyed hanji with 감물 gammul - persimmon juice. The feedback I got was that there were too many activities and not enough time to take them all in. So this time I am going to try to prep some naturally dyed pulp in advance for folks to make colored paper in the deckle boxes.

To dye the pulp, here is what I did. (btw everything i know about dyeing pulp, I learned from Radha Pandey.) First of all I should say that the dak that I am using was beaten during last weekend’s workshop. I have no idea how long the participants beat the dak but it’s questionable how well it was beaten. Anyway, I did a two-step mordanting process - first soaking the pulp in a hot tannin (gallnut) solution, then rinse, then soaking in a hot soda ash + alum solution, then rinse. (process images shown above.)

Meanwhile I prepared a few dyes using whatever I have on hand. (see photos above.) I had a bunch of leftover logwood chips and gardenia fruit that I had already used last year to extract dye. Because I am cheap and lazy resourceful and efficient, I used them again this time. I was curious about using black beans which I have never dyed with. I divided up the mordanted dak and soaked it in the different dye baths for several hours, then rinsed. We’ll see how it goes.

When I first conceived of this project, I thought I would have a vibrant natural dye garden in my backyard. Well the garden hasn’t happened yet, but I am hoping next year will be the year that I start to harvest beautiful colors from my backyard. As part of my research for this grant I am taking a one-day natural dyeing workshop at Fibershed in Point Reyes this coming Sunday. I’m looking forward to sharing some of my learnings here and bringing them into subsequent workshops along with my own studio practice.

Courage & Showing Up: Hanji Workshop #1 Recap

It was a wonderful first workshop gathering, and my heart is full. Here are some snapshots from the morning:

Definitely some things to tweak for next time, but overall I thought it was a great group. I appreciated every single participant who showed up and engaged in such an open and courageous way.

After some hands-on studio time outside, everybody came in to have snacks and fill out a survey. This was one of my favorites, by a 7-year-old who came with his dad:

One participant shared that they almost bailed, even though at first they were so eager to attend. Fear or uncertainty of being in an all-Korean space, perhaps in anticipation of a discussion about Korean identity and having to face some questions, are feelings to which I too can relate. It is my default response to avoid, tense up, or feel hella awkward around Koreans and in all-Korean spaces. It’s been a journey of coming to terms with my identity, since having kids and choosing an art form so deeply tied to my Korean heritage. I am learning how to connect my love of paper to a love and appreciation of my culture, heritage, and family. I am grateful for participants showing up and sharing so vulnerably…hopeful that these spaces help folks feel less alone, like we are journeying together.

creations from the hanji workshop

Behind the Scenes: Connection through Preparation

I have a friend named Deb who is a physician and doesn’t have to go in to work on Thursdays. She is one of my only Korean American friends in Sacramento. Over the past few years, she has come out to help pretty much every time I set up to make hanji (which typically only happens once or twice a year). At this point she has pretty much performed every step of the process - she has assembled my hanji vat, stirred the vat, beaten dak for hours, plus plenty of other tasks. She claims she knows nothing about papermaking but she knows far more than the average person. So much of “knowing about papermaking” frankly is doing a whole lot of repetitive, manual labor.

Deb is an ideal helper in that she genuinely enjoys the work. I asked her recently if she thinks she would still come out to help if I were doing some other form of labor-intensive craft, even Western-style papermaking. She thought about it and after a while, said nope - somehow what is compelling for her is that I am making Korean paper, that there is a connection to our shared heritage. Her answer made sense to me too, and probably explains why I too do all of this work to make Korean paper.

Winnie loves when Deb 이모 comes over but I also have to explain to Winnie that Deb 이모 is here to work, and that she could maybe play during lunchtime. I love how Deb plays with my daughter and includes her in the work. There is a natural ease and connection among friendship, family, community, and work, that I hope makes a strong positive impression on Winnie. I hope she remembers how friends and community folks would show up and laugh and work hard and chat and take breaks together, and that this is totally normal.

Aside from all of the physical work of preparing for the first hanji workshop (preparing fiber and other raw materials, setting up the outdoor studio space, cleaning, etc) there has also been a lot of thought and consideration into how to best facilitate the short time that we have together (the workshop is only 3 hours long). I worked with my mom (“Mimi”) to translate a survey that I am having all participants fill in during the workshop. While meeting with Mimi, I wondered aloud how she would answer questions like “How would you describe your relationship to your Korean heritage in one word?” Secretly I wonder how my parents feel about this work that I am doing with the Korean American community, and hope that it would bridge some gaps between me and my parents and family.

I wasn’t sure where participants should write their survey responses and wanted to incorporate hanji somehow. In the end, I decided to have participants write their responses on leftover hanji, which feels like an appropriate material for holding words and drawings, however unformed and messy.

Beginning

Welcome to this area of my website, where I share field notes, photos, handwritten notes, drawings, scans, videos, and more (?) in an effort to document and archive a series of hanji workshops for the local Korean diaspora that I am facilitating this summer, thanks to a grant from the City of Sacramento Office of Arts & Culture. The culmination of this project will be a physical journal of notes, samples, fragments, and survey responses collected during the course of the summer - which I also hope to digitize and share here somehow. The hope is that these workshops will be generative and will build community as well as lay the foundation for future work. These are the overall intentions though I am keeping an open mind and heart. For now, here is a note that I wrote on hanji, the night before the very first workshop:

a note written on hanji