Out of the first edition of Paper Runway Magazine

It’s still nearly hot off the press – and it’s fresh out of my mailbox! The fabulous first issue of Paper Runway Magazine that is all about paper, paper and even more paper! And of course I had to get a real paper copy with a lovely stitched spine (even the rather paper-blind boyfriend had to positively comment about it) – but you can also have a look at some pages of the first issue here and buy it afterwards…

So what it’s all about – well, beautiful photography of paper design, paper fashion and amazing illustrations for paper-related articles – all excellent for “before and during the morning coffee” after you’ve found your copy in the mailbox. And then there is page after page filled with smaller pictures and descriptions of paper products and paper goodies you all want to have – excellent reading after the first cup of morning coffee. And – last but not least – there are wonderful tutorials and I’m currently wondering for which not-so-grown-up occasion I can make the confetti dipped goodie bags (designed by tokketok) – to start you working right after you’ve finished that third cup of coffee!

Head over to Big Kids Magazine to read the whole interview with Nikki and Maree – the paper- and designloving ladies and fresh-baked publishers of Paper Runway Magazine.

Yes, you can also find a PaperPhine product in Paper Runway Magazine – have a close look at the “In the mood for blue…”-pages – Thanks Nikki and Maree! And a note to the significant other with my birthday coming up in 7 days: I want everyhing from pages 9, 20 and 38 and a lot from in-between!

Point 10 of monocle’s “A Better Blueprint, their 10-point agenda for change in 2010:

Master classes in success

For years, teenagers have been told they need an academic qualification to get on. But that’s not always the case. So many people are not cut out for pen pushing and book worming. But if someone had put a chisel in their hand and a master had shown them how to use it, they might have grown up into the new Michelangelo, or at least a good carpenter. We need to go back to valuing the good old-fashioned apprenticeship. We want to see more people making things. And the only way to do that well is through years of slow, caring trial and error under the wings of the best craftsmen. And once you’ve done that you will be priceless. We’d import you over from Switzerland to put up our shelves any day, rather than go for the rip off man down the road whose heart is not really in it.

Well, I do read monocle though I’ve never bought one – interestingly there seems to be a steady supply nevertheless. And I do like part of their features – those people do have some taste when it comes to travelling and design and I do like reports about sucessful businesses that have found their niches (guess why). Unfortunately, sometimes I’m not sure if products they show are shown because they are well-designed and thought-through or because they are expensive. Anyway – some articles and thoughts are good and thisI like this specific point of the “10-point agenda for change in 2010″. At least today I will not start to point out the problems with finding the mentioned “best craftsmen” to learn with – I’m not sure if they still exist, at least not for all crafts that have existed at some point and that could still be very usefull today. As I’ve discussed with friends and fellow “craftsmen” recently (for some reason they prefer to call themselves “designers” nowadays) even the word “crafts” itself implies some problems due to its lacking “hipness”. And there are also the thoughts of Richard Sennett in his great book “The Craftsmen” to think about…

Anyway, this is going to far for today. I think monocle writing about craftsmen is a good sign – let’s hope that their “agenda for change” will actually really change something in the near future.

I was thinking about how the recent “surge” in the popularity of paper yarn started and it surely had a lot to do with the really wonderful book Paper Textiles (the German version:Papiertextilien) by Christina Leitner and it’s promotion by “Textilforum”.

Well, “recent” in this case in a very broad sense of the word because the book was already published in 2005, but nevertheless. So, to be frank, some of my own work is featured in it as well (just have a look in the section where different artists are introduced and then look for the only Austrian artist – that’s me) though back then I was still working a lot more with different fibres and not only with “paper fibres”. And yes, I do know the author – and I know she put a lot of work into her book – as well as some of the other people whose work is shown.

What I really like about the book are not so much the “how to”-instructions (I have enough ideas and like to experiment with new techniques that were originally developped for other materials), but the different artworks that are shown with each of these “how-to”-chapters that give a very good impression of the wide range of possibilities of paper yarn and hand-made “shifu”-yarn.

While the second part is dedicated to the hands-on-approach to the topic, the first part deals with the history of Paper Textiles and it’s production. Even though nowadays paper textiles have disappeared from all but the most elusive clothes’ shops, cloth and clothes woven from industrial paper yarn od hand-made shifu, but also garments made of specially treated paper called “kamiko” as well as cheaply produced paper dresses were an important part of fashion in various cultures at various times. Christina Leitner clearly descibes these cultures, ways of making and using paper textiles – and even if you just leave though the book you will notice the wonderful pictures and illustrations.
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Using my old notebooks from school to make myself a blue-tinted dress is still one of those ideas I would like to realise one day (too bad Western paper is not suited for first-rate shifu). And it seems that I will need to dedicate another blog entry entirely to the old tradtion of shifu, but not quite today.