By Lynn Sures and Michelle Samour
Published by The Legacy Press, Ann Arbor, MI
A landmark book that profiles an artistic movement that has operated largely outside the mainstream art world, Radical Paper: Art and Invention with Colored Pulp serves as both an overdue history and an up-close look at the range, versatility, and brilliance of art created with colored paper pulp.
Available for purchase online at
Featured in ARTACTIONS, a special interview and gallery segment of Inter-Actions, the interdisciplinary digital quarterly published by LILA Foundation for Translocal Initiatives, INDIA
https://lilainteractions.in/meeting-time-immemorial/ and https://lilainteractions.in/variations-on-the-dialectic-between-mingus-and-pithecanthropus-erectus/ for the EVOLUTION issue.
Book Arts Newsletter, April-June 2021, Published by Impact Press at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, UK
Lynn Sures is interviewed by Helen Hiebert on Hiebert’s podcast, Paper Talk, April 9, 2019
“Paper Talk is an ongoing series of interviews by Helen Hiebert featuring artists and professionals who are working in the field of hand papermaking and paper art.” (from Helen Hiebert Studio website)
Book Arts Newsletter, April-June 2021, Published by Impact Press at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, UKCatalog, Living A Dark Night, Curated by Paula Sengupta, 2022, India
An exhibition of prints by over a hundred artists made in response to the horrors and the existential crisis of the Covid pandemic.
“For twenty months now, India is living a dark night, from which we are yet to awake. It would not be incorrect to say that the anguish that India is suffering today has not been seen since the Bengal Famine of 1943 or the Partition of 1947. We invited artists to come together to hear this anguish and register it for posterity, lest history forgets. The works in this initiative encapsulate a time of despair and anxiety, when artists withdrew into the studio as the only space of refuge. Executed in a space of isolation, these prints look from deep within to the spectre without…but also from darkness to light.“
– Dr Paula Sengupta
Book Arts Newsletter, April-June 2021
Published by Impact Press at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, UK
Paperslurry: A Mixture of Hand Papermaking, by May Babcock
Must-See Pulp Painting Art: New Series by Lynn Sures
“There are very few artists, relatively, working in the medium of hand papermaking. Lynn Sures is a paper artist one should know—she has been using pulp for over 20 years.”
Author, “An American Artist Abroad in Sri Lanka,” Umbrella, Volume 29, No. 2, June
Author, “VARIATIONS on the Dialectic between Mingus and Pithecanthropus erectus,”
The Blue Notebook, Bristol, England Volume 1 No.2, April 2007
Author, evolution essay in “Common Descent,” Central Booking Magazine and Catalog, New York, NY
Author “Il Bisonte International School of Graphic Arts, Florence, Italy”, Fall 2002,
“Graphic Impressions”, Southern Graphics Council
Fiberarts magazine features VARIATIONS on the Dialectic between Mingus and Pithecanthropus erectus, created with writer Rick Potts, described and pictured in the article “An Art Form Learns to Fly” by Debra Riley Parr, summer issue.
Fiberarts magazine Mar/Apr. “Profile: Lynn Sures” photo of “Panel Four” & text by James Mahoney
Author, “VARIATIONS on the Dialectic between Mingus and Pithecanthropus erectus,”
Bound and Lettered Journal, September
“Particolari” exhibition at Gallery K, photo & review by Joe Shannon, Feb.
Author, “Paper at the Nexus of Being and Place: A Conversation on How Art and Science Interpret Human Origins in Kenya” Lynn Sures with Richard Potts, Hand Papermaking Magazine, volume 34, number 1, Summer 2019
“Lynn Sures speaks with paleoanthropologist Rick Potts about mutual endeavors in science and art to discover and interpret human origins.” (quote from HP website)
Article Intro: “In 2016 I received a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship for my project, “The Nexus of Being and Place: Interpreting Human Origins.” Two scientists from the Human Origins Program at the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC advised me: Dr. Richard (Rick) Potts and Dr. Kay Behrensmeyer, each with expertise in paleoanthropology, paleoecology, paleobiology, and geology. In October 2016, I began drawing fossil casts at the museum using colored pencil on various papers I made from hemp, flax, linen, or abaca. In the summer of 2017, I took my handmade paper to Nairobi, and drew from original fossils of early humans and fauna in the collection of the Nairobi National Museum. Camping with scientists at Olorgesailie, I drew their excavation sites. In the spring of 2018, at Carriage House Paper in Brooklyn, New York, I made embossed pulp paintings based on the drawings, and continued this work in my own studio through 2018. This conversation with project advisor Rick Potts took place in Washington, DC at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on April 17, 2018.”
by Lynn Sures, Richard Potts
Book Review
La Mano dell’Uomo (The Human Hand)
“In this feature Jeanne Drewes reviews a passionately made book, La Mano dell’Uomo (The Human Hand) by Bruno Caruso.” (quoted from the article)
The collaborative book is handmade by Tom Leech and Lynn Sures in Fabriano, Italy and in Santa Fe, New Mexico, celebrating a long-ago New Year’s booklet made for his friends by artist Bruno Caruso.
Guest Editor, Hand Papermaking Magazine issue on Italian Papermaking, vol 31, number 2, Winter 2016
For this special issue devoted to papermaking in Italy, guest editor Lynn Sures rounded up an array of perspectives from Italian artists, scholars, academics, and artisans. The authors demonstrate their strong cultural heritage, with an eye to the relevance of papermaking as a living practice. It is exciting to imagine its future through the stories we see here. For our Italian readers, we will be offering the original manuscripts, in the Italian language, on our website.
[examples of articles:]
Giuseppe Amendola Amatruda follows a centuries-long family tradition of working in the papermaking industry in Amalfi, and tells a tale of his family mill.
Roberto Mannino introduces fabrianese master papermaker Luigi Mecella who is both a stalwart of a museum’s papermill and an artisan drawing on traditional sources in his own practice. Mecella provides a sample of his multi-use artist’s paper.
The skilled paper and book conservator Gabriele Dondi is interviewed in his fascinating Urbino laboratory by Giorgio Pellegrini.” (quoted from HP website)
Articles in this Issue are translated by Lynn Sures.
Original articles at:
The 2010 Pulp Painting Symposium in San Antonio by Lynn Sures, Beck Whitehead
“Lynn Sures & Beck Whitehead report on the Pulp Painting Symposium, a model “think-tank” event for intensive peer-to-peer exchange.” (quoted from HP website)
Article intro: “From the moment we picked up the first person at the San Antonio airport the energy began to grow. As each additional pulp painter entered the paper studio at the Southwest School of Art there were introductions, warm greetings to old friends, and building excitement about this historic endeavor. Eleven artists from around the country were meeting to talk, share, and exchange ideas about approaches to painting with pulp. From January 14 through 17, 2010, we participated in an intensive symposium on an intimate scale—a Pulp Painting Think Tank.”
Author, “The National Collegiate Handmade Paper Triennial” volume 31, number 1, Summer 2016 Hand Papermaking issue on artist papermakers under 30
“Lynn Sures chronicles the 17-year history of the National Collegiate Handmade Paper Triennial.” (quote from HP website)
Article Intro: “I was in a plane headed for Atlanta when the idea of a national competition for college student artists occurred to me, and I pitched the idea to Cindy Bowden when we met. She enthusiastically agreed, and with the freewheeling spirit of people doing something for the first time, we set out as co-directors. Cindy, as director of the American Museum of Papermaking, and I, as a faculty member of the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC, hurtled towards organizing and presenting the 1st National Collegiate Handmade Paper Art Show in 1999. The mission was and continues to be the recognition of artwork being done at the college level in which the student artist’s own handmade paper is the primary medium.”
The National Collegiate Handmade Paper Triennial: Twenty-First-Century Papermakers
ON Annarita Librari: Engraved in Wax and in Time, The Chiaroscuro Watermarks of Annarita Librari by Lynn Sures
Article intro: “My first tangential encounter with Annarita Librari took place long before I met her. Traveling with students in 1997 to the Museum of Paper and Watermark in Fabriano, Italy, we came upon backlit sheets of paper containing mysteriously sculptural images. They were an arresting sight. I could not imagine how the images got into the paper. They were perfectly reminiscent of famous works of art, almost three-dimensional, intriguing and fascinating. Additional visits to the museum over the next couple of years confirmed this first impression. Finally in the summer of 2003 I was introduced to the magician who created them. The story of this patient, dedicated artist has slowly unfolded for me.”
Author “Living Museums of Papermaking in Italy”, Summer (volume 17, number 1) and Winter (volume 17, number 2) 2002 issues of Hand Papermaking magazine, Washington, DC
“This article will appear in two parts, published in consecutive issues. This issue’s installment focuses on paper museums in Amalfi; the Winter 2002 issue will cover facilities in Bevagna and Fabriano. Ed.” (quoted from HP website)
Article intro: “In several different regions of Italy, devoted people are operating museums of papermaking, keeping alive the machinery and methods used there continuously since the thirteenth century. Amalfi, in Campania, is the site of the historic Amatruda and Cavaliere papermills, and the unique Museum of Paper. La Valchiera, an engrossing reconstruction of a medieval mill, is located in Bevagna, in Umbria. The Museum of Paper and Watermarks is in the famed paper city of Fabriano, in Marche.”
Author “Living Museums of Papermaking in Italy”, Summer (volume 17, number 1) and Winter (volume 17, number 2) 2002 issues of Hand Papermaking magazine, Washington, DC
“This article will appear in two parts, published in consecutive issues. This issue’s installment focuses on paper museums in Amalfi; the Winter 2002 issue will cover facilities in Bevagna and Fabriano. Ed.” (quoted from HP website)
Article intro: “In several different regions of Italy, devoted people are operating museums of papermaking, keeping alive the machinery and methods used there continuously since the thirteenth century. Amalfi, in Campania, is the site of the historic Amatruda and Cavaliere papermills, and the unique Museum of Paper. La Valchiera, an engrossing reconstruction of a medieval mill, is located in Bevagna, in Umbria. The Museum of Paper and Watermarks is in the famed paper city of Fabriano, in Marche.”
Author, “The Expansive Helen Frederick,” Hand Papermaking Magazine, volume 35, number 2, Winter 2020
“Lynn Sures’ interview with Helen Frederick, artist and founder of Pyramid Atlantic in the Washington DC area, covers Helen’s impressive history, including both past and current projects in paper, printmaking, and installations.” (quote from HP website)
Article Intro: “Helen Frederick is in her Reading Road studio describing to me an exhibition project, the latest in an extensive series spanning her significant career. She is just as excitedly relating a purge of past documents of her history, everything but family memories, which have become emphatic in her life and her art. She feels that she is at the point where it is no longer necessary to describe the titles she has held. “I’m not a printmaker, I’m not a graduate of RISD, I’m not a founder of Pyramid, I’m not a professor at GMU, I’m this individual, heartfully trying to give exposure to concerns…”
The Expansive Helen Frederick
Cover (“Lucy”), “An Interview with Lynn Sures” by editor Michael Durgin, Hand Papermaking volume 11, number 1, Summer 1996
Article intro: “Michael Durgin: Let’s start by talking about beginnings: your introduction to paper and your background before that. Lynn Sures: I was painting for ten years before I started making paper, with a little bit of print making–etching–as a point of interest.”
An exhibition review by May Babcock.
“May Babcock gives us her take on the exhibition ‘Pulparazzi: Painting with Paper’ (quoted from HP website)
This exhibition is comprised of works by the members of the pulp painting collective “Pulparazzi” which was founded in 2010 by a group of artists including Sures, all working in the medium.
Icon News is the magazine of the Institute of Conservation in England. It published a review by Simon Barcham Green of the special Winter 2016 issue of Hand Papermaking magazine that I assembled, translated and edited.
“In this issue, we are pleased to present Ann Montanaro’s excellent essay, which accompanies our ninth limited-edition portfolio Handmade Paper in Motion, illustrated by early historical paper movables and reproductions of all fourteen pop-up creations included in the portfolio” (quoted from HP website)
Article intro: “Handmade Paper in Motion, the ninth Hand Papermaking portfolio, features stunning examples of paper engineering on handmade paper representing a variety of movable devices. The contributions follow a long tradition of movable paper. For more than a thousand years, philosophers, scientists, artists, and designers have added movement to text to increase the reader’s understanding, pleasure, and involvement with the words, concepts, and emotions. The artists in this portfolio have built on this time-honored practice.”
Sures’ “Frasassi” installation and her techniques for pulp painting featured in “Beater Finesse for the Artist” by Catherine Nash, Hand Papermaking volume 23, number 1, Summer 2008; also limited edition published by Nash including samples of the artists’ papers
Catherine Nash quote from article: “I have compiled 32 beater note entries, by 25 contemporary, international papermakers and paper artists.” (Beater Finesse for the Artist compilation is on Nash website)
Sures’ “White Sands #14” featured in the 15th-anniversary issue of Hand Papermaking, volume 16, number 1, Summer 2001
by Laurence Barker, Amanda Degener, Lesley Dill, Jennie Frederick
“The following text has been adapted from the author’s essay accompanying Hand Papermaking’s recently published limited-edition portfolio entitled The Art of Pulp Painting. In addition to the essay, the portfolio includes 18 pulp paintings (all reproduced here) and statements by the contributing artists outlining their aesthetic and technical considerations along with biographical and contact information. Ed.”
(quoted from HP website)
Sures’ “White Sands #12” photo featured in review of the exhibition “Plane and Form” by Karen Searle in the 20th Anniversary Issue Hand Papermaking volume 21, number 1, Summer 2006
Article intro: “In Plane & Form, curator Jeff Rathermel chose a fascinating array of artists to sample the range of contemporary handmade paper artworks currently being produced in North America. Works on view in the large gallery of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) included pulp paintings and artist books, sculpture and assemblage, series and installations.”
Innovative Printmaking on Handmade Paper by Eric Denker
“The following text has been adapted from the author’s essay in Hand Papermaking’s limited edition portfolio of the same title. In addition to the essay, the portfolio includes the twenty prints described below and statements from all of the artists.” (quoted from HP website)
Article intro: “The importance of paper in prints is given short shrift in the standard histories of printmaking. Generally the overviews introduce the history of Western printmaking with a sentence or two about the seminal role played by the introduction of inexpensive paper from North Africa and Moorish Spain into the rest of Europe in the late Middle Ages. Some authors virtually dismiss the subject from their continuing discussions, as if the printed lines and compositions were suspended somewhere in space, independent of visible means of support. The more sophisticated studies include references to the early mills in Spain, and to the establishment of papermaking facilities in the thirteenth century in Fabriano, Italy, and in the fourteenth century in France and Germany. Little is mentioned of the expressive potential of the paper in early prints, the authors tending to emphasize paper simply as a vehicle for the image. Yet, from the outset of printmaking, artists have understood the integral role that the physical and aesthetic characteristics of the paper play in the transmission of the printed image.”
Review of Second National Collegiate Handmade Paper Exhibition by Ross Jahnke
The Collegiate Handmade Paper Triennials were co-founded in 1999 by Lynn Sures and Cindy Bowden, and co-directed by Sures through 2019
“Second National Collegiate Handmade Paper Exhibition, The Robert C. Williams American Museum of Papermaking, Atlanta, December 2002-March 2003; The University of Alabama – Tuscaloosa, April-July 2003; Nicholls State University, Louisiana, August-September 2003; The Minneapolis College of Art and Design, October-November 2003; The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, February-March 2004” (quoted from HP website)
If I Had Nine Lives and Water-Wheel Book featured in color.
Lark Books, Sterling Publishing Co., New York
Authentic Visual Voices is a survey of international artists whose work explores the diversity of paper combined with the unique properties of encaustic wax in collage, photography, printmaking, sculptural paper and artists books.” Sures was interviewed, and the book takes a careful look at many encaustic pieces she has created. The book “features 28 artists who in their own voices discuss their artwork with artist/author Catherine Nash. Nash conducts in-the-studio video interviews which focus on where creative inspiration comes from and how artists synthesize experience, emotions and concerns into their work.” Quotes are from the AVV website.
Sures’s installation Frasassi featured.
Author Helen Hiebert chose Sures’ 86-piece installation for this collection. The individual papers made during an artist residency in Fabriano, Italy, together depict in colored paper pulps the patterns and textures of the walls of the Frasassi caves in the Marche region.
Storey Publishing, LLC
“It’s Homo erectus, it’s you” frontispiece in Humanity’s Descent: the Consequences of Ecological Instability by Rick Potts William Morrow, NY
DVD by Helen Hiebert, based on her book, The Papermaker’s Companion
Works selected by Steve Miller, VARIATIONS… is featured, Lark Books, Sterling Publishing Co., NY
Lark Books, Sterling Publishing Co., NY
Sures’ artist books Seven Hours in a Cave and Elusive are featured in this book by Sandra Salamony with Peter and Donna Thomas.
Quarry Books, Beverly, MA.
Lark Books, VARIATIONS… featured
Sterling Publishing Co., New York
This book documents 25 years of works produced collaboratively at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Maryland under the direction of Helen Frederick.
This book documents 25 years of works produced collaboratively at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Maryland under the direction of Helen Frederick.