Skip to main content

Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean papermaking .....


I'm delighted to share with you the Press Release on Oct. 23rd, 2012 of a new English book on Hanji, by Aimee Lee.

I wrote about Aimee Lee in my blog post, Paper making... a short film ..., on Oct. 6th and I was thrilled to hear from her this week about her newly released book which is now available.

I hope that all of you who are interested in Hanji will support Aimee by buying her book. I've ordered mine already !!

It's so important that more is known around the world about this wonderful product and how and why it can be used in so many different ways.

Top Scholar and Artist Writes First American Book on Korean Papermaking

(October 23, 2012, Ann Arbor, Mich.) 

The Legacy Press has released the debut book by artist Aimee Lee about Korean papermaking called Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking (ISBN 9780979797446, hard cover, 208 pp, 10 x 7 inches, full color, 300+ illustrations, $35.00). 

In the first English-language book about hanji, or Korean handmade paper, Lee recounts stories of meeting papermakers, scholars, and artists from Korean cities, villages, Buddhist temples, and island outposts. Interwoven with personal anecdotes from her yearlong Fulbright Fellowship, Lee describes the process of making and using hanji from harvesting trees to carefully weaving the finished paper into a sculptural vessel.

To highlight the importance of hanji and address its endangered status, Lee built the first Korean papermaking studio in North America in 2010 at the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio. She travels across the U.S. to teach and lecture about hanji and related crafts and maintains free digital archives online. Lee's workshops routinely draw students from around the U.S. and abroad, and her informational videos have received over 600,000 hits.

"This book is a valuable resource, a must-read not only for papermakers but for anyone interested in perpetuating honored traditions into an environmentally responsible future." —Melissa Jay Craig, paper sculptor/book artist.

"Aimee is an accomplished writer, and through Hanji Unfurled, she has communicated her valuable perspectives as artist, papermaker, and bilingual ambassador for Korean paper arts." —Cathleen A. Baker, proprietor of The Legacy Press (est. 1997), which promotes the printing, paper, and bookbinding arts.

Author Profile

Aimee Lee, a visual artist and papermaker, was born in New York City and researched Korean paper arts on a Fulbright Fellowship (2008-2009). She holds a BA from Oberlin College and MFA from Columbia College Chicago. Her artwork is exhibited internationally and resides in collections that include the Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Library, Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, Museum of Modern Art Library, and Yale University Library. She travels widely to teach and lecture at colleges, museums, and arts centers while writing about her research and providing hanji resources at aimeelee.net.

For more information about Hanji Unfurled or to schedule an interview, please contact Aimee Lee at contact@aimeelee.net or visit aimeelee.net.

Here is the link to her book page online (where you can  order copies).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways.  In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book.  Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out.                         The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most  important symbols in both Korean culture a...
3 comments
Read more

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings.  None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit.  It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist.                         For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been  around for about three thousand years.  The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastik...
Post a Comment
Read more

HANJI TRIVIA - Punjabi 'Hanji' .......

When researching about Hanji I've come across many sites that relate to the word 'hanji' being used in Punjabi, one of the Indian languages.  There's a band called 'Cornershop' that  made a CD in 1997 called, "When I was Born for the Seventh Time' and at the beginning of the song, which I believe was originally sung in Punjabi, they use the word Hanji.   In Punjabi both 'han' and 'ji' mean yes. When talking informally to a person they use 'han' but if speaking to an elder or a person with a superior status then they put the two words together and say 'hanji'.  You just never know when this word might be used ......
Post a Comment
Read more