Monthly Conversations

Interviews with Social Artists, Uncommon Heroes

March 11, 2013

From the Editor

Richard Whittaker

Welcome to newsletter issue #26. A small collection of random treasures. We begin with an introduction to Combat Paper. From there we go to paperless singing, then a book of photographs 'Regarding Fencelines', conversation with an Aikido master and two poems from the cloud. [more]

More Features

• Fencelines: A Conversation with Eric Klatt
• James Friedman On Akido
• Doris Mitsch: Poetry Found in the Cloud

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Combat Papermakers -- Two Voices

From uniform to pulp; from battlefield to workshop; from warrior to artist. In a radical new version of 'swords into ploughshares,' papermakers Drew Cameron, an Iraq veteran, and Drew Matott, an activist artist, have taught 100s of war veterans to slice up their combat uniforms and to transform them into paper. Papermaking is an art of transformation, but this takes the transformation of papermaking into new territory. Cameron and Matott call their process 'liberating rag' and the fiber that results 'combat paper.'

Donald Schell -- Risking Song

Donald Schell talks about singing together. It is, he says, a foundational dialogue, like that the mother-child dialogue. And the thing that is so powerful about singing face to face is that something actually happens between us -- literally in the space between us -- that makes not only communication possible but makes us possible. It isn't just our eyes, it's our whole presence. Being engaged together in a common hearing brings something into being.