A141. Not Paper

A141. Peter and Donna Thomas. Not Paper, Santa Cruz, California: Peter & Donna Thomas, 2010.

21.5 x 13 cm (8 ¾” x 5”), 17-page accordion, 48 copies.

Binding: Simple accordion; covers are leather over boards, color varies by copy. Title stamped on cover. Backing pages and text pages are layered, folded in half, and sewn together end-to-end to form the accordion. Housed in a clamshell box made by Donna Thomas covered in painted paper and cloth. Title on label on cover. Paper: Eight different types of paper handmade by Peter Thomas. Printing: Letterpress; multiple color runs. Typography: Text is hand set Centuar. Titles are hand set Neuland. Title page printed with a green and yellow rainbow roll. Backing pages printed using hand set wood and metal type; multiple color runs. Illustration: Eight samples tipped in. Notes: Text block is composed of two accordions layered one on top of the other. The foreground accordion is a smaller sheet of white paper printed with the name of the sample, the text and has a sample attached to it. The background accordion is made up of folded pages sewn together end-to-end and has the name of the sample printed in multiple colors with multiple typefaces. Cover is printed with wood type in acrylic paint.

“Conceptually based on our earlier miniature, Almost Paper [A88], the text describes paper-like materials that are not actually paper including amate, birch bark, parchment, papyrus, tapa, Tyvek, and wasp nest, and there are samples of each material included with the text.

Each page was printed on a different color/making of my handmade paper. I used paper in the shop left over from previous editions and the 48 copy limitation was based on the fact that I could only find enough of some sheets to make that many copies. Each page describes a material commonly thought of as paper, but which is actually not paper (amate, birch bark, papyrus parchment, tapa, tyvec, and wasp nest).

The cover paper for the clamshell boxes was made using what we call the ‘Donna-graph’ technique. Donna first explored this technique in 2004 while teaching a class at Naropa’s Summer Writing Program, when we made the book Wake Up [E10], and further refined it when we returned to Naropa in 2008. She first rolled out acrylic paint on a slab, then rolled the brayer over a font of wood type (removing some of the paint and creating a ghosted image) and then transferred that image by rolling the brayer over the cover paper.”