FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM "Wan2-2003 No.1" by Shizuko Kato is one work in the paper art exhibit at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. The show being held in conjunction with the "Kapa Washi Paper" Festival, with free activities Saturday at the Academy Art Center.

The "Kapa, Washi, Paper"
conference explores the wonders
of paper making and paper art

---

By Joleen Oshiro
joshiro@starbulletin.com

Paper products "Kapa, Washi, Paper" Festival: Where: Academy Art Center at Linekona, 111 Victoria St. When: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday Activities: Fish prints, origami, calligraphy, brush painting, rubber stamping, kite flying, kapa, Japanese washi paper and indigo-dyed paper. Bring a white T-shirt to dye in the indigo vat. Display of paper art and boutique selling handmade papers. Admission: Free, including activities Call: 536-4566

Paper. That flat, thin, flyaway sheet is so integral to life as we know it that it seems almost inconsequential. But think about paper for a moment -- white paper, lined paper, colored paper, post-it paper, computer paper, toilet paper, wrapping paper, paper boxes, paper plates, paper money -- and all the things it's used for -- writing, drawing, printing, storing, purchasing, decorating, cleaning, reminding, inviting, thanking --and you know it's anything but inconsequential. Paper is a tool for carrying on daily life and facilitating human interactions. It is a canvas upon which our creative impulses and innermost thoughts can flow.

But if you can believe it, there's even more to paper than all that, and this week, TEMARI, the Center for Asian and Pacific Arts, is holding a paper conference called "Kapa, Washi, Paper" at the Academy Art Center, where artisans from all over the world are sharing and exploring the wonders of paper making and paper art.

"In this age of PDAs, e-mail and digital technology, I still believe in bread-and-butter thank-you notes written in longhand," says TEMARI's founder Ann Asakura. "Nowadays, people want things fast, boom-boom-boom, and there is a role for short attention-span art, what we call 'microwave art,' that's quick and easy.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM "Waves, 2003" by Reiko Mochinaga Brandon is one work in the paper art exhibit at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. The show being held in conjunction with the "Kapa Washi Paper" Festival, with free activities Saturday at the Academy Art Center.

"But that's not TEMARI's style. You gotta know the history and cultural context of what you're creating. When you understand history and culture, and you make it by hand, you get so much more out of a piece of art. Yeah, it's slower, and it takes longer. But I, for one, don't mind slowing down."

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, the public will have an opportunity to gain a slice of that understanding when the conference closes with a paper festival, complete with papermaking activities, music and food. There will also be a paper store for those won over by the lure of color, texture and handcrafted work after the introduction.

THE PAPER CONFERENCE was 23 years in the making, dating to when TEMARI was barely 2 years old. Asakura had arranged a Japan partnership which involved sending TEMARI students to learn papermaking techniques so they could return to Hawaii to teach the craft.

Eventually, "we had people willing to share their skills. We had people willing to build the equipment. And we had no space," she says. So TEMARI approached the Honolulu Academy of Arts with the idea, and together, they began providing washi (paper) classes in Honolulu.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Shown are some of the papers that will be available at a Paper Store during the festival.

At the same time, Asakura started researching kapa by gathering kapa masters from Oahu, Kauai and Volcano. After she published her paper, seven members of the original group stayed together to form Na Hoa Hoala Kapa (Dedicated to the Revival of Kapa).

"That's how we started," she says.

Then, in 1983, TEMARI members attended the Kyoto International Paper Conference where they demonstrated kapa making.

"Six hundred people from all over the world attended," Asakura says. "They had simultaneous translations going on. It was incredible. We wanted to do that too, but on a smaller scale."

A couple of decades later, Asakura and fellow TEMARI member Ann Nakamura revisited the idea of staging a paper conference in Honolulu after listening to several requests for papermaking classes. At first, Asakura says, she thought, "been there, done that." But they realized it was time.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Yuling Bruya, left, and Nancy Carol try their hands at making paper baskets during a workshop offered by TEMARI.

"We were nearly the first generation to be exposed to washi in Hawaii," Nakamura says. "After 15, 20 years, the next generation is now interested. It's the circle of bringing back and sharing."

NAKAMURA, a papermaker who lives in Japan and owns a paper supply business, says the digital age has hit handmade paper companies hard in Japan.

"A lot of the smaller companies are family owned," Nakamura says. "The sad part is, a lot of young people don't want to perpetuate (the family trade). And some parents actively push their kids away from it. Until they can educate the public of the value of their product, it's easier to earn a salary than sell what they make."

And yet, amid the propulsion toward technology, Nakamura says there's been a revival of sorts by Japanese youth for natural products. It's referred to as an "eco-movement."

"In Japan, many homes are westernized, meaning they're concrete buildings. But there's always one tatami (mat) room," a room that's traditionally Japanese.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Reiko Mochinaga Brandon's "The Season of Intrusion, 2003," is one of the works included in the paper art exhibit.

Based on that concept, Nakamura says, there are magazines for young people who live alone that shows how to create one corner of the home that's traditional.

"Maybe it's a small shoji lamp or a shoji window. They try to imagine new ways of adapting Japanese paper to uses for a contemporary lifestyle. Paper is an integral part of being traditional in Japan."

MOANA EISELE, one of the seven original members of Na Hoa Hoala Kapa, also finds ties to her culture through paper.

"For me, the making of kapa is a slice of Hawaiian culture," she says. "Even though it is a process very few do anymore, it's valuable. It teaches discipline and commitment. All the qualities of being human are there."

Eisele says kapa takes "many hands" to create.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Linda Strong, left, and Jinja Kim, in green, examine some of the handmade papers that will be available for purchase at Saturday's "Kapa Washi Paper" Festival.

"Hawaiian things are like that," she says. "Today, I took my grandsons to gather stuff for the natural brown dye from the kukui plant. The same time I'm teaching, the same time I'm learning.

"I enjoy making cloth and useful things out of it. We just sent my granddaughter to the Prince Lot Hula Festival, and I printed all their kapa skirts," she says. "For me, it's not about making money or selling. It's about seeing what you have around you and how you can use it."

Eisele says what she finds amazing is that "the natural plant material used in paper throughout the tropic zone is the same material."

What the Hawaiians call "wauke" and the Japanese call "kozo" is mulberry in English, a plant, incidentally, that westerners use for making paper as well.

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Paper artists from around the world gathered in Honolulu all week to share and learn techniques. Etching is practiced during a "paste paper" workshop offered by TEMARI, the Center for Asian and Pacific Arts.

"It's interesting that even though (each country) uses a different process for papermaking, the same plant is used through the world," Eisele says.

"Something that looks so insignificant as mulberry stalks is very functional."

"It's this concept of comparative cultural exchange that drives everything" in TEMARI, Asakura says. "Paper (is a means) for cultures to practice rituals. I have a friend who's wrapping money today for a funeral. Shinto temples use paper to bless the crowd for coming. There are all kinds of uses for paper. People should learn where it comes from."

Click for online
calendars and events.