Japanese Papers with Jamie Pratt

It was wonderful to have Jamie Pratt at our meeting last night, speaking to us about Japanese paper. Jamie has been the Halifax area representative for the Japanese Paper Place for over 25 years and she has been a friend of Nancy Jacobi, the founder of the JPP, for even longer. Jamie says she fell in love with handmade Japanese papers because they are so beautiful, exceptionally well made, and have so many different uses. It was a pleasure to hear Jamie's presentation and have a look at all the samples she had for us to examine.

Jamie talked briefly about the history of papermaking in Japan and how the number of families producing paper in Japan has decreased dramatically in the past century. In the 1800s there were as many as 80,000 families making paper in Japan, whereas now there are about 400.
Jamie provided a number of paper samples for us to examine and talked about the many different uses the papers have. She had samples of prints, artwork, handmade books, and other objects all made from Japanese paper, as well as a wide selection of publications about washi and its myriad uses throughout history.
Thank you, Jamie, for a very interesting evening, and thanks also to everyone who came out for the meeting. See you next time!

---

Submitted by Rhonda Miller