For the love of paper

I just posted two new ‘Hand Made Journals’ and it made me think about how I first started my love affair with bookmaking.

I’ve always been attracted to the feel of nice paper in a beautiful handmade journal. As a young woman I kept many journals. I would buy a cheap book only for the inside pages. Then I would transform the cover with collage and drawings. I still have them all and promise myself to read them in my old days!

When I attended art school, I took an elective class of papermaking & bookbinding with Sharyn Yuen. Wow! I already had the love for paper but she gave me the tools to express that love. I made many books that year…

‘Nikohl’ is a book I made to remember precious moments in the life of my dear friend, while she was fighting ALS. It’s a collection of my photography along with short stories we shared together.

I have made this book in collaboration with my husband. It is a symbol of our life coming together in one book with each side showing photographs of our families. My husband is Chinese descent and I was raised near the ocean on the east coast of Québec. We brought forward our differences side by side in this handmade book. And symbolically tied this story of our togetherness with a piece of bamboo joined with beach wood.