When paper artist Joanne Kaar says “There is much to learn from a piece of Taiwan paper” she is absolutely right.   It may be a paper offering horse, a good wishes origami bird, an origami box from waste paper or even ghost money.  Paper is a fundamental part of life in Taiwan playing a role in both their day-to-day life and their spiritual beliefs.

Joanne discovered these rituals and uses for paper along with eastern papermaking techniques and other skills when she spent five months as artist-in-residence at the Chaoyang University of Technology in Taiwan last year. 

The residency, which was partly funded through a professional development grant from the Scottish Arts Council, came about through her search for a sugeta when writing a book on papermaking.

Joanne was guided throughout her visit by third year design students Ding-Way Lin (Hank), Inca and Michael.  “Not a minute was spared” said Joanne “my hosts were fantastic and made sure I missed nothing.  They arranged for me to meet many different craftsmen from all over the island.”

In the mornings Ding-Way took Joanne on his scooter to university where she had her own studio space on a fourth floor balcony.  As well as her own work she taught first year students western papermaking techniques and they would drop in to see what she was working on and have a go.

On Saturdays Joanne would travel for two and a half hours by train to teach at the Su-Ho Paper Museum in Taipei.   As well as workshops she held an exhibition of her work - ‘Green Altar’ – which included work by the third year design students.

Her work for this exhibition illustrates the way she was influenced by the environment and traditions of Taiwan.  “I combined the idea of an alter offering bamboo, banana leaves and leng jiau for renewed life in the coming year, with the simple beauty of paper used in everyday life, special handmade papers and also decorated papers.  These were surrounded by large silkpapers with seeds.  I chose to use mostly red as this colour represents good fortune” she explained.

“Following the Chinese tradition where art work is portable with the experience starting from opening a box or unrolling a scroll, this was a handling exhibition where people could open the boxes and discover for themselves what was inside.  Some papers were made into boxes, like those found in every household kitchen in Taiwan.  Inside each box was a unique hard back book.  There were eight boxes and eight books – which is a lucky number.”  Some of the pages in the books were made from bamboo leaves and re-cycled ghost money, which is sold in ghost money shops and burnt to keep ancestors or gods happy.

As a result of the exhibition her first year students were invited to make new work for Su-Ho for an exhibition in the ‘Page One’ bookshop in Taipei City, which is located in the tallest building on the world.  It was one of a series of events to promote a new book – ‘The Papermaker’s Cookbook’ - for which Joanne was a consultant.

After her residency she said “I returned to Caithness with many questions un-answered and things unexplored.  This was not because time was wasted or people unhelpful, but because there were so many exciting things to look at.  My Taiwan experience was quite beyond my imagination.  I simply ran out of time.”

Joanne is now going to be bringing the Taiwan experience to Scotland when student Ding-Way Lin visits her this summer.  It is the first time he has travelled outside Taiwan and he will be doing a two day workshop at North Lands Glass and learning woodturning from Michael O’Donnell as well as running workshops with Joanne. 

Each workshop is going to have a slightly different content.    As well as skills such as eastern papermaking and origami there will be other activities such as cooking with bamboo leaves and rice, tree/rock decoration in celebration of Tudi Gong the Taiwan earth god and possibly ghost money burning.  At all the workshops there will be Taiwan snacks to try at and artifacts to see, such as paper clothes which are transported by burning if their ancestors or gods need a new outfit.

Find out the latest tour dates for the summer workshops in Training & Opportunities.

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