John Risseeuw

In 1972, when perhaps less than a hundred people in the U.S. had learned hand papermaking, I received the rudimentary basics while a grad student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was an eye-opening gift to be able to make paper of the size, color, thickness, shape, and content I chose for my print projects. Eight years later, I came to Arizona State University to begin a new faculty position establishing book art courses within the already solid Printmaking Area of the then Department of Art and discovered that Dean Jules Heller had created a papermill a few years earlier pursuant to his current interests in contemporary hand papermaking and the book he was writing, which became Papermaking, Watson-Guptill, 1978. 

View of the ASU School of Art papermill studio

Feeding fibers into a Hollander beater to make pulp.

Pulling sheets of handmade paper.

Within a couple of years, with the book art studio well under way with presses, type, equipment, and students, I began teaching papermaking in Dr. Heller’s mill, learning more and more about the process, craft, and medium as I went along. By 1988, I realized that the content of handmade paper could contribute to the content of the work printed on it, and new conceptual doors began opening up that I slowly explored over the next 25 years. The Keepsake of the Risseeuw Family Farm was printed on paper made from sisal binder twine, jute feed sacks, straw, hemp ropes, and cotton seed sacks from that farm. It seemed to make sense.

A Keepsake of the Risseeuw Family Farm

In 1991, Pyracantha Press staff printer Dan Mayer and I decided to print a broadside to commemorate the bicentennial of the signing of the Bill of Rights. We printed it on paper made from cotton American flags and blue jeans, two quintessential American fibers that we felt embodied the freedoms of the Bill of Rights. The paper is purple because of the blend of red, white, and blue fibers.

The Bill of Rights, 1991

Many projects later, I chose landmines and landmine victims as subject matter in a multi-year project. I interviewed victims in Cambodia and Mozambique, asking them for articles of clothing. I also received clothing from victims in other countries, making paper pulp from the clothes plus plant fibers from the minefields and including shredded currency of the countries that make and use landmines. On the paper, I printed stories and facts, selling them to produce revenue to donate to the organizations that help victims and demine the land. To date, over $25,000 has been donated.

 Strange Fruit, 2002

 La Explosion, 2003

Artist books of handmade paper have provided me with yet another form in which to exploit the use of content-specific handmade paper.

Children of War, 2005

 The Politics of Underwear, 1973

 

Spirit Land, 1996

 Spirit Land, detail, 1996

 Eco Songs, 2000

Total Fucking Idiots, 2003

Boom!, 2011

Subjects include underwear as political analogy, fibers of place, the ecology of the earth, political chaos, and the fragmentation of lives. Making Paper Mean Something has been an interest of mine for a long time, through my printmaking, bookmaking, and papermaking. It is also the title of my presentation for the 2015 Yuma Symposium. I hope to see you there.

John Risseeuw

Professor

School of Art

Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts

Arizona State University