episode thirteen | craig anczelowitz

Published 30 April 2019

Miranda Metcalf  Hello print friends, and welcome to the thirteenth episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), the internet's number one printmaking podcast. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. I release an episode of the podcast every two weeks, and on the off weeks, I publish an article on the Pine Copper Lime website. Last week, the article was about Mirabo Press in Buffalo, New York. I spoke with the three co-founders about their journey from meeting at SUNY Buffalo to converting a 6800 square foot factory into their dream studio. They just opened last August, so it's some pretty new and exciting stuff. Give it a read. Let me tell you friends, getting some pretty fun times over here at Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend) headquarters in Sydney. First and foremost, I want to give a huge thank you to anyone who has come on board as a Patreon supporter. You have officially bought my love. And for anyone who's wondering, yes, that does start at just $1 a month. If you haven't had a chance, head on over to the Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend) Patreon page and check out all the levels. It's some pretty good stuff. And honestly, it's just wonderful to see this community growing. And I'm just getting started. I actually have a big announcement, but you're gonna have to tune in again in two weeks' time to hear it. I'm super close to being ready, but I want to make sure everything is perfect for you all before I launch. It's gonna be a pretty big deal. And I have some special perks just for all you loyal Pine Copper Lime listeners that I can't wait to share with you. Printmaking forever, shun the non believers, join the party. My guest this week is Craig Anczelowitz from Awagami Factory, the paper mill, which has been making washi by hand for eight generations. Awagami is located in Yoshinogawa village on the Shikoku Island, which is the smallest island of the big islands which make up Japan. There, the mountains and rivers provide the fiber and water necessary for washi paper making. As you'll hear, I'm super prepared for this interview, and I completely mess up the title of the factory at the very beginning. So, bonus. But Craig is a really generous guest and has incredible information to share about everything that's going on at Awagami Paper. We talk about the residencies, exhibitions, the onsite museum, the differences between Western and washi paper, and just the incredible history of that factory. And to put some icing on this cake, Awagami is partnering with Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend) for a giveaway of 50 sheets of their editioning paper. That's all happening over at the Pine Copper Lime Instagram page (@helloprintfriend). So head over there if you want to join up. As always, there's a link in the show notes. Without further ado, here's Craig. Hey, Craig, how's it going? 

Craig Anczelowitz  Morning, Miranda, thanks for having me. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, thanks for joining me. I think that you might be the closest in timezone to anyone I have ever brought on Pine Copper Lime before. 

Craig Anczelowitz  All right. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, we're both in the morning for once. 

Craig Anczelowitz  The future.

Miranda Metcalf  Right. Exactly. Yeah, you and I in the eastern hemisphere, we're used to wishing happy birthdays a little bit early and all of that to our friends, I think. Well, I'm super excited to have you on. Because this is gonna be something a little bit different for Pine Copper Lime, is I'm talking to someone who is a printmaker, but also, you're a part of the amazing Awagami print factory, or I guess, let's see, what's the official title, are you guys the Awagami print factory, the Awagami print enterprise, like what's your full official title?

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah, we have a couple of different titles. The full Japanese name is so long, I won't get into it. But actually, we just go by Awagami Factory. Of course, we're first and foremost, a paper mill, long, long established, and then more recently, we've been developing the print side of the business, working with printmakers and so on and so forth. But for paper making, or Japanese washi, we are now eight generations strong.

Miranda Metcalf  That is amazing. So now you do, as I sort of alluded to, you have a personal background in printmaking, right? You studied it?

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah, way back in the day, in the '80s and early '90s, I studied printmaking and have my MFA in printmaking and paper making. The paper thing came as a direct result of being, you know, the poor printmaking student and I needed to make paper to edition. And I fell in love with the paper making process as I was doing lots of wood cuts, which was also a very hands on, tactile print form. So making paper, doing these wood cuts, seemed to go hand in hand. So yeah, I'm really happy now to be involved in paper so I can talk to printmakers because I know their struggles and their questions. I've been through it before. So I'm happy to demystify washi Japanese paper for them.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, definitely. I would love to get into some of the differences between the the washi and the Western style paper when we get a little on, because I know that's something that many printmakers are curious about. But you're from New York City, but you've lived in Thailand. And now as we just were chatting about, you're based in Osaka at the moment. How did you end up making that transition?

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah, well, after university, went back into the city, into New York, and started working as a buyer for Kate's Paperie, which was this wonderful paper emporium, three or four stores in Manhattan. And we carried thousands of papers for all kinds of art and craft and hobby and correspondence and so on and so forth. And that led me through traveling around talking to paper makers, and really being 100% immersed in paper culture. And met all sorts of wonderful people, really passionate artisans and craftsmen from South America to Europe to Africa and to Asia, of course, the birthplace of paper. Working at Kate's Paperie, running this big paper department, I happened to have met the people from Awagami, stayed in touch. Later on, after a few more jobs as designer and buyer, I ended up in Thailand running my design business, designing home furnishings and interior design and also stationery. So I always kept in touch with my paper roots, and eventually kept going east, further and further east, and ended up here in Japan where I'm working with Awagami, who actually, my wife is the daughter of the current president of the company.

Miranda Metcalf  And so Awagami, is that the family name, then?

Craig Anczelowitz  No, well, Awagami breaks down to Awa, A-W-A, is the old name of the region where the mill is located. And if you're Japanese, you kind of know this word "Awa." It's for a region in Shikoku, which is the smallest of the main islands in Japan. And it's an agricultural heartland. So that's Awa, and then "gami" is just another word for paper, like washi. So Awagami is paper from the Awa region.

Miranda Metcalf  And so Awagami Paper Factory, it's been going on for eight generations, which is incredible. So I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that history. I'm sure there's some amazing stories in there.

Craig Anczelowitz  Paper making, of course, began in China 2000 years ago or so, and eventually made its way through the Korean Peninsula and into Japan, where it was really, I wouldn't say perfected, but was, you know, as Japanese tend to do, they really treat things as an art form and push the creative potential of things, including paper, and it really flourished here in Japan. So for us, our region has always been an agricultural heartland. So starting in, I would say it's about the eighth century, about 1300 years ago, our region started cultivating kozo or mulberry and hemp for paper making for nobility, the shogunate, and the ruling class. So paper making in our region is about 1300 years old. Hemp actually was also grown for cloth, textiles, clothing, etc. And paper making for us began eight generations with many families in the region as sort of, I guess you would say, a cooperative, where during the winter time, people would make paper and gather it and then sell it to a trading company, typically in Osaka. And the paper would then be dispersed throughout the country. The reason I say winter time is because in those days, paper making was really a winter time activity. Because in the spring, summer, fall, most of the paper makers were farmers, so they're growing vegetables and fruits and so on and so forth. And then when the winter months came, the the fiber, the gozo or hemp, was gathered and processed and paper making then took place over the cold winter months. As it turned out, cold mountain water is actually better for paper. So everything became quite in sync with wintertime. Many generations later, most of the people in our village or our cooperative stopped making paper, which in general happened throughout Japan. We eventually were one of the very few families still making paper up until about, let's see, about 100 years ago, we really probably were the last one in our cooperative to make paper. And we stopped doing agriculture and became paper makers full time.

Miranda Metcalf  And what led to the decline in paper making in the region?

Craig Anczelowitz  Well, in Japan in general, you know, there's a number of factors. The key aspect, I guess you would say, is following the war, World War Two, with the westernization of Japan, most traditional crafts, not only paper, slowly began to decline. Furthermore, you put on top of the fact that it's a very labor intensive process, it's very hard work, it takes a while to perfect this skill. And young people kind of enamored with Western culture saw it as a part of old Japan, not contemporary Japan. And following the war, then, in the '50s and '60s, of course, Japan started becoming more prosperous, and people moved to the cities. And this kind of old world craft began to decline.

Miranda Metcalf  Well, I know plenty of print makers who are very thrilled that the family has continued and speak very highly of the Awagami paper. So we're very happy that that's still going on.

Craig Anczelowitz  Although we're paper makers, you know, we are - and not just myself, but we - are print enthusiasts. So of course, there's a long tradition that we've been making paper for mokuhanga, Japanese woodblock printing, but we, including the current director, seventh generation, Mr. Fujimori, he is also a print enthusiast and a collector. And we are, first and foremost, of all the art forms that we enjoy and and try to find artists to collaborate with, are printmakers.

Miranda Metcalf  So for someone who maybe is just starting out on their paper journey, or printmaking, or just someone who maybe doesn't know, I'd love to start with just some of the basic differences between washi or Japanese paper and Western paper and sort of what you can do with it that maybe you're not going to be able to do with Western paper as a printmaker.

Craig Anczelowitz  I guess first we don't ever, in Japan, use the term "rice paper," but perhaps in the West, many printmakers and people new to the medium just generally refer to this type of Asian style paper as rice paper. Yeah, so we call it "washi." In Korea, they call it "hanji." And these papers are typically made from kozo and other natural fibers, gampi, mitsumata. Without getting too detailed, but all natural fibers, they tend to be thinner yet remarkably stronger when compared to Western paper. The difficult part with Japanese papers is that there's many different kinds of papers with long Japanese names that are difficult to pronounce, and makes getting really involved in Japanese paper a little tricky. So from the get go, when I came aboard, I really wanted to demystify washi and make it easy for printmakers to know the basic fundamentals of how washi can help them realize new creative avenues in their print work. But in general, I would say, just think of washi as thinner yet stronger, and suitable for multimedia, beading, soaking, and so on and so forth. Typically, washi will be about 50 to 100 grams. Of course there's heavier and thinner, but your typical printmaking Western sheet is more in the realms of 200, 250 grams. Western sheets are mostly made up of cotton and wood pulp. And Japanese is mainly kozo, which is a mulberry, and other versions, mitsumata, gampi, are types of daphne plants. And we also use some hemp and bamboo fibers as well. We have a section on our website called "washi basics," which is a couple of pages long, which will also give you a general understanding of the process of making washi and the types of differences you can expect when working with washi.

Miranda Metcalf  Okay, good. I will put a link in the show notes to that for sure then. And so speaking of process, as you know, printmakers tend to be very process oriented. And I know there would certainly be some people who'd be interested in just hearing an overview of the actual creation, the basic steps that it's going to go through, from plant to an etching press. 

Craig Anczelowitz  Absolutely. So since kozo is the primary fiber, let's say the main fiber, we'll concentrate on that one. Like I had mentioned, kozo is still typically, the plant itself is typically harvested in the winter, and it's quite thick, and the branches of this mulberry or kozo, they grow back annually. So you can use the same plant for 100 years if it's tended to and treated with TLC, you can use the same kozo plan year after year after year. So the strongest branches are harvested in the winter, and then they are steamed. Now once these branches are steamed, you can easily remove the outer bark from the core, which is not used. That outer bark contains three layers: the barky woody layer on the outside, and then there's a green layer of fiber in the middle, and then the inner part has a white fiber which is very, very long. They must be separated so you get to that inner white fiber. So it's steamed, cleaned, and then eventually you get down to this really beautiful fiber that is later cooked to further break it down and make it a bit softer, and then it's beaten. In the West, you would say the fiber goes into a Hollander beater. So it's basically beaten either by hand or in a type of Japanese machine, a type of beater that's similar to a Hollander beater. But because the fibers are so long, they're typically three to four, sometimes five or six times longer than cotton fibers, we always want to preserve the length, because this gives the paper its strength. So we never cut the fibers. For instance, cotton that goes in a Hollander beater, the fibers can be cut and shortened. But we always protect in every process, from cleaning to cooking to beating, you always want to preserve those long fibers. But after beating, there's another cleaning layer, then it becomes a pulp, which is placed in a vat and paper making sheet forming proceeds. And the sheet forming, it's a variation on Western sheet forming, of which I'm sure your listeners have seen some images or videos. And if they go to our website or Facebook, we have lots of videos showing the paper making process as well. But it's a really beautiful, poetic type of dance between the paper maker and the vat of pulp when they're pulling sheets. It's a very difficult, strenuous process, and paper makers themselves are awarded in Japan as expert craftsmen, master craftsmen, depending on the level they achieve, are bestowed by the government as sacred treasures of the country. So it's a very respected craft. And the sheet forming process itself is very beautiful to watch. It's not so hard to do, but of course, it's very, very hard to perfect.

Miranda Metcalf  I will definitely put links into some of those videos, too, in the show notes. Because I think I've seen them a couple of times, and they're just gorgeous. It's like watching someone dance or something.

Craig Anczelowitz  It's a very beautiful process to watch. And the sheets themselves, you know, to make sheets that are so thin time and time again, is very complex. And there's a lot of subtleties to the process. But after sheets are made, they're later pressed and dried, sometimes in the sun, sometimes in a drying room, and then the sheets are removed, inspected, and then shipped off to happy printmakers around the world.

Miranda Metcalf  So when you're talking about the kozo fibers being longer, I'm having trouble actually picturing how long. Are they 10 centimeters, are they 100 centimeters?

Craig Anczelowitz  Kozo, the fibers themselves on average would be about 10 millimeters long, they can be upwards of 15 millimeters. So let's say on average, they're 10 millimeters. The interesting thing is, hemp can be on average about 25 millimeters. So even longer and stronger. But with that length, it also becomes very coarse. So the paper is not quite as luxurious or supple. For instance, kozo at 10 millimeters is probably about twice to three times as long as cotton. And of course it's about five or six times longer than woodfibre. So it's a real sweet spot for fine paper. It gives you the strength, but it also gives you the flexibility, the suppleness, that you need for different art and conservation purposes.

Miranda Metcalf  And then what you were saying about how the plant can have longevity itself if it's cared for in the right way, that must make this a pretty environmentally sustainable kind of papermaking then, yeah?

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah, well, of course, in these days and times, people like to say "eco friendly, this is a green product," so on and so forth. But in Japan, that has always been kind of part of the culture. So it's not really used in marketing here. But absolutely, you know, our kozo we grow on the side, we're in the valley and then our kozo grows In the mountains around us, and we have one or two gentlemen who are out there tending to the plants, making sure that they are growing properly year after year. Sometimes we have some deer or other animals that cross in and eat a bit, but the trees themselves, they have to be pruned properly, and they have to be cared for so that the yield every year gives us A+ fiber.

Miranda Metcalf  And then also just to sort of take a little bit of a pivot here and move away from the nitty gritty of the papermaking, I also know that Awagami is actively involved in supporting artists through collaborations and residencies and exhibitions. So I know that there are, a couple of people have specifically asked me when I get you on the line to talk more about that, and particularly maybe the Awagami international mini print exhibition that the call is going to open up about the time this podcast publishes. 

Craig Anczelowitz  Well, you know, we love working with artists, like I said, I'm I'm a printmaker, and my family were print collectors and we've been working with print makers, Western printmakers, since the 70s. Mr. Fujimori started working with Ken Tyler, with Tyler Graphics and Gemini in the US, developing papers for people like Frank Stella, Richard Serra, Helen Frankenthaler, and so on and so forth. So we learned a lot from these artists as well. Even though we're making paper for hundreds of years, printmaking evolves and artists evolve, and we learn as much from them as they do from us. So we've always had an open dialogue, and a willingness to collaborate. Now, those are some pretty heavy hitting artists there. But we also love collaborating with even, you know, creative school children, they can teach us things. Printmakers, painters, all kinds of artists are interested in paper. But we found that printmakers have an inherent need and love for paper, moreso than other art forms. And we're always looking to keep an open dialogue with printmakers, professors, we visit SGC and other printmaking activities around the world trying to, once again, demystify washi, and work in the spirit of collaboration so that we can all grow together and push printmaking, and show people that print is not dead. So whether that's creating a mini print exhibition or creating papers for hybrid, digital-plus-traditional printmaking, we are really hoping to push forward paper making and printmaking into the next generation and further along the line. The mini print exhibition you mentioned, thank you, we open in - May 1st is the open call. And this mini print exhibition, it's the third time we're doing it, we offer about $10,000 in prizes. And this has become a really wonderful opportunity to show your prints in Japan. We exhibit all prints. Last one, we had about 900 prints. So this one, we really, we want to promote both contemporary printmaking, but also washi. So all the prints entered must be on a washi paper. Now they can be on our washi, they can be on someone else's washi, we don't mind. As long as the artist is touching and using some kind of Japanese paper, we're happy. We all support each other in this small community. So when you enter the mini print, yeah, you have the opportunity to work with washi. We will send papers to people to use if they haven't used them before. And yeah, it's a really wonderful way to try washi paper. And we love to involve our local communities. So we exhibit all the prints, we travel the prints throughout Japan as well, the selected winners. We also hold workshops and symposiums at the mill and our paper museum during the exhibition. So we just continue to push forward and try to introduce as many printmakers around the world to washi as possible.

Miranda Metcalf  That sounds like a great opportunity.

Craig Anczelowitz  You know, since I've come on board and I'm the first kind of native English speaker, it's really been my responsibility to reach out and demystify, once again, washi as much as possible, in order for us and others like us to to survive. The Japanese have always supported washi paper making, but let's face it, there's less and less paper makers and the Japanese community is getting older and we need to survive. And in order to do so, we have to reach more people in the Western world. And so this mini print competition is one way to do so.

Miranda Metcalf  So you have the exhibition that you mentioned, but then also there's residencies as well.

Craig Anczelowitz  Yes. So we have a few different programs. And we have residencies, but we also have workshops throughout the year. So every January, we have a workshop. And then we have our big international workshop every summer for one week, where we teach all facets of papermaking, as well as Japanese bookbinding, as well as natural Indigo dyeing, that's a week long workshop open to everyone. But then we also host universities. So if you're a university and you have 10 students or more, we can make a program for your school. So we work with Princeton and RISD and University of Wisconsin and University of Kansas, and some universities out of Singapore and Hong Kong. So we open the mill to custom tailor these workshops for students. And then we also have residencies, we have a visiting artist program, where we charge a very nominal fee for artists to come and develop a body of work. And then we have our fully funded, we call AAIR, Awagami Artists In Residence. And that's fully funded, we pay for everything for the artists to come and work for up to two months. And we do that every October, there's an open call for that. Fairly competitive, because there's only two spots, and we typically get about 80 applications. So it's two months in October. What we're trying to do with finding those artists are artists who are looking to push the medium, and either push paper or print or both. Really help the print and paper medium move forward. So part of the application process, you know, you have to submit your intended work and what you're looking to do, and our jury and committees really searching for international artists, who - they don't have to be familiar with paper, but they have to be looking to do something unusual that can use paper and/or print. Now, connected to the mill, we have a full hybrid printmaking studio. So you can do etching and woodcut and litho and silkscreen and digital printing as well. So if you can combine digital plus traditional plus handmade paper, we really are interested in those kinds of artists.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, that would be so exciting, to see what comes out.

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah, we've had artists the last few years, we've had senior artists who are in their 60s and have an established career. And we've also had artists who just came out of college, literally graduated, and their first fall, they came to to work with us because their ideas were so outstanding that we really wanted to have them. So it's a really nice way to push the medium. We'll send an announcement for this fully funded program in another month or so. So if you're on our mailing list, you just go to our website, and you'll get an announcement in about a month, how to apply.

Miranda Metcalf  It's really great to hear that the selection process, it sounds like, is based on your ideas and the merit of them and, you know, not just your CV, which I think is very nice to hear, particularly for emerging artists and younger artists as well, that they could get what sounds like an incredible opportunity if they just have the great ideas for it.

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah, what we do is, we have a house for the artist to stay, they're two minutes' walk to the mill and to the print lab. And every year we have two or three international artists and then one Japanese artist. So it's really nice to have this diversity of people. And we have limited amount of staff, of course, so the artists we tend to bring in will be concentrating in slightly different areas, so no one's stepping on anyone's feet. And everyone has enough room and space, if they want to work really large, or perhaps they want to concentrate more in the print lab or in the paper mill. So we really like to have people who complement each other and then also who can get along. They have to live together for upwards of two months. So we want nice people, too.

Miranda Metcalf  Yes, of course. That's one of the nice things about working with printmakers, though, is we tend to be a pretty nice group of kids.

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah. And this is all in the spirit of collaboration, because you will work with our master paper makers. And we also have, in the digital lab, we have a master printer. So a lot of traditional print makers, they know a bit about digital, but they're not quite master printers on the digital printing end. But we have staff who can help them. And then for the print lab itself, we don't have a master printer yet, we are still looking for somebody. That's another story. We have all the presses and inks and everything that they require.

Miranda Metcalf  Do you want to get into - you said that's another story. Do you want to tell that other story?

Craig Anczelowitz  Well, I can say a little bit. We will eventually look to get involved more in publishing. So we are looking eventually to have a master printer on staff so that we can bring in more artists. And then we can start publishing editions of prints on unique papers regularly and then have an arm of Awagami that's a publishing house, let's say, of limited edition prints. However, you know, we are in the rural countryside. So getting a master printer who can speak English and Japanese, and live in this countryside where we are, is a little tricky. So we are still looking to tweak our system so that we can have a master printer at least a few months out of the year. This way, we can invite even more printmakers to come and make editions with us and open up a publishing arm if you will, of limited edition prints. So this is a goal, let's say in the next two to three years, you know, the paper and the print aspect are all in place. But we really are still searching for the right person to come and become our master printer. Even though we're nice people, there's not many on staff who speak fluent English. There's a few. So we want to have a master printer who at least has a bit of Japanese language skill. So that's a little tricky, but we'll be fine. We'll find someone good, I'm sure.

Miranda Metcalf  And I'm sure upon hearing that, there's at least a few people now googling "Japanese English dictionary," so they might be qualified for the role. That's really exciting, though. And it's so wonderful to hear all of these stories about how Awagami is growing and supporting the community through everything that you guys do over there, it's really incredible.

Craig Anczelowitz  We're working hard. I mean, we're always seemingly behind the eight ball. We are a small company, I mean, even though we have factory in the name, and we have all these programs going on, we're still 40 people in a rural, very small village in the countryside of Japan. We have big aspirations and goals, but we are still a small company. So bear with us, we're still trying to grow and trying to reach as many printmakers out there as possible. So we like to continually educate and, once again, demystify Japanese washi paper, and hopefully through visiting our website or Facebook or seeing us at some conference, printmakers out there will at least consider trying some washi paper. When I went to printmaking school back in the '80s and early '90s, you'd get the list and it's Arches and it's Rives and maybe Stonehenge, but you know, it's BFK and Arches Cover, and that's basically it. And then you would even ask the professor about other kinds of paper and washi paper was so complicated that only the real diehard professors would dare to recommend one or two papers. Perhaps they would just say kozo for chine-colle, and that that's about it. But yeah, one thing is that I'm very happy, if you have listeners who have specific questions or samples or something they're trying to uncover or unearth or learn about, the best way to reach out is you can send us a question on our Facebook page, or on our website, awagami.com. And we answer everything. So please feel free to message us directly if you have a technical question or any question about washi in general. We're real people, and we're happy to answer.

Miranda Metcalf  That's so good to know because I know that so often, printmakers, particularly if they've left school or left the university that they were at and moved somewhere else, it can be kind of isolating when you're stuck in your studio somewhere and something's not working, or you want to try someone and you don't know where to turn. And I think a lot of times, when you just send a message on Facebook, you're like, does anyone even check this? Is anyone out there?

Craig Anczelowitz  Well, we're certainly out there. And I personally answer every English question that's emailed to us, and we want people to at least try some washi papers and see. Maybe you're in a creative rut and you need some kind of new material to push you in a new direction or get you thinking differently, or you want to try something and your cotton paper is not working quite as expected, or you're looking to push the envelope. And you have, 'Well, can I do an etching and soak this and do encaustic and add that on top?' And we'll answer those technical questions as well. You know, way back in the day when I was a buyer and trying to find all these papers, the names are so complicated, it just makes it very intimidating. And really what happened was, is that the papers have these long Japanese names. And traditionally, the way that the paper made its way to, let's say, America or Australia, they went through a few different hands. Whether or not it was from the original maker and the cooperative to a trading company to an exporter, then to the importer, then to the retail store, and then to the printmaker, the reference name maybe got changed, the code number, the spelling of course would get changed, so people get very confused. I learned also, as a buyer, I was buying the same paper from two or three different people, they just used different names. Yeah, on that note, we really created Awagami as a brand. Our company is really Fuji Paper Cooperative. But Awagami was created as a brand back in the '80s, to protect the mill and for people to have an actual brand to hang their hat on, meaning that it's not just kozo paper. Well, there's kozo paper from 50 different mills in Japan, and then even paper coming out of other Asian countries would be called kozo paper. So you know, there's Arches, there's Fabriano, there's Rives, there never really was a mill associated with specific Japanese paper. So although we don't watermark and never will watermark our papers with the mill, the brand logo or anything like that, we did create the brand back in the '80s as a way to protect and for artists to know where the paper was coming from. Now, sometimes it's a little tricky, because our distributors or retailers don't use the brand Awagami and just use the paper name. But we try to encourage anyone who sells our paper to use the brand, just to give the artist the peace of mind to know where the paper comes from, its lineage, and so on and so forth. And in case they have a technical question. Sometimes people send paper samples to me, and they say, 'Oh, I bought this Awagami kozo paper, and it it doesn't respond to my collagraphs the way it did five years ago.' I'll look at the paper and we'll test it, and so on and so forth. And often it's not our paper at all. Sometimes it's not even Japanese paper, it comes from Southeast Asia or another country. So this is also something that maybe proves intimidating to artists, and frustrating, is that when they buy Arches Cover or Rives BFK, pretty much guaranteed if they buy it this year or they bought it five years ago, it's gonna act the same way. And they have the watermark, and they have the heritage to prove it. So we're trying to do something similar with washi.

Miranda Metcalf  That's such a good point that, now that you mentioned it, it's kind of obvious, but it hadn't occurred to me before. You don't see the same brand names with washi as you do, as you say, with the Rives and these big, big brand names with the cotton paper. So of course that's going to get confusing for people.

Craig Anczelowitz  Well, you know, in Japan, the paper maker, even though - okay, we're a contemporary company, but - the paper maker has always been the humble craftsman. And putting a watermark on the paper was... they're too humble to do that. The artist puts the name on the paper, not the mill, not the paper maker. That's for the artist to put the name. So Japanese mills will never put a watermark on the paper, it just is kind of against the grain of the philosophy of the humble craftsman. But we are in a different era, and we need to survive. So we won't put the watermark, but we did create the brand name. And we try to encourage people to use it whenever possible. And this has helped us a bit to survive as well, for people to know.

Miranda Metcalf  And if anyone is hearing this and thinking, I really would like to try some of that paper, Awagami has generously donated to Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend)'s next giveaway. It's going to happen on the Instagram. It's 50 sheets of the Awagami editioning paper. So that should pop out probably about the exact same time that the podcast is published, so look at that, and that could be your chance, printmakers.

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah. Well, thank you for working with us on that. We're happy to support printmakers all over the world. People know Japanese things are of high quality and have heritage and history. But at the same time, they know Japanese things tend to be a little expensive. So maybe they're a little inhibited to try, but here's your chance. You can win. And we look forward to seeing whoever wins the paper, what kinds of prints they're making on the paper. So please, share and repost and tag us so we can see what you're doing with our paper.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, yeah, definitely. If the lucky person who wins shares what they make, I will definitely repost that on Pine Copper Lime as well so we can see what we're doing.

Craig Anczelowitz  This is one of the things, I mean, social media, it's kind of a catch-22 for us, because, you know, some people say, 'Oh, you're craftsmen, you shouldn't be all over social media.' But the same way, we're a business too. And we're so far away from people that actually social media has become a blessing, because we can reach people from our little village, and we can reach people in Australia, we can reach people in South America, even. And then we get inquiries all the time and people reposting, and the community grows. And printmakers, too, have always been a bit of an outsider group, and I say that as a printmaker myself. Painters and sculptors, you know, they get all the glory, and printmakers have always had to band together, and whether or not it's through SGC or Impact, you know, create a community that we can fully appreciate what each other is doing, and paper makers are really kind of the same way. We want to enjoy this community of social media and share with other like-minded paper and print enthusiasts and, once again, demystify the process. And learn from printmakers as well. So when I see a post with someone using our paper, and they tag us, and, oh, that process looks very interesting. Oh, they're doing etching with digital print, plus stitching on the sewing machine, and blah blah blah, or creating some unusual printed book, and I open dialogues with many artists so we can collaborate in some way or sponsor a future workshop or an exhibition. If someone's really pushing our paper in new directions, I'm more than happy to sponsor an exhibition, to sponsor, if they teach, their students, to send paper out to their studio to share with their classmates. It's all in the spirit of pushing print forward. Please reach out or tag us if you have some unique work that's going on Awagami paper. We'd love to see it. And we bring those images into our company meetings. And believe it or not, we show what people are doing within our own company, and I say, 'Oh, look at these artists in Australia, look how they're using our paper.' And our paper makers are often really, really excited to see, like, 'Oh, really? They use our humble Japanese paper in such a unique way, we never would think that our paper can be used in such a creative application.' And it's really heartening for them to see what they're making, how it's being used out there in the print world. So please share.

Miranda Metcalf  I love that so much. That is so great. I think that is a great place to wrap things up, because I think that's such a beautiful idea and story. Is there anything else that you'd like printmakers to know? Definitely make sure to tell them where they can find you and where they can reach out to you to share what they're making?

Craig Anczelowitz  Yeah, absolutely. People can go to awagami.com, of course, and learn a little bit more about what we're doing and the type of workshops, events, residencies, so on and so forth that we're doing. You can also email us through that website, or email us through Facebook or tag us, look for us on all the typical social media outlets. And please share, and we love to share back. So let's collaborate with as many printmakers as possible. And the mill itself is also open to the public. So if, by any chance, your listeners are traveling in Japan and want to try making paper, come and visit the mill, take a look around our museum as well. We are open to the public six days a week. We're closed on Monday. So please come and visit.

Miranda Metcalf  Thank you so much for chatting with me and sharing this incredible story of everything you all are doing out there. It's seriously inspiring.

Craig Anczelowitz  Thank you for creating the podcast itself because like I said, printmakers, we need to have a community and we need to be active and sharing ideas and pushing the medium forward. And having a podcast now, I see you're about a year in now, thank you for doing that. That's really wonderful. And I hope you get more listeners. And if I can be of any assistance, we're more than happy to send paper to any of your listeners who are looking to do some unique works.

Miranda Metcalf  Well, that's our show for this week. Join me again in two weeks' time when my guest will be Jenny Robinson. We talk about her childhood growing up in Borneo, her deep printmaker pride, finding a sense of place during turbulent times through art making, and the most effective method to abandon boyfriends in the Bombay train station. I'm also going to drop my bomb about what's coming next for Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), so don't miss out. I'll see you in two weeks.