Next Workshop on May 15, 2016 the Elements, Part 1 Fire and Clouds

Our next workshop with Dara Juels will take place on Sunday, May 15, 10:00-2:00 PM. Part one will focus on drawing flames and clouds-- among the two most well known Tibetan motifs of the elements used in traditional Thangka painting. We hope to refine these motifs in order to carve them into wood blocks followed by printing on our etching press or to apply embossing the images into our handmade papers. The workshop is offered by donation to the instructor. 

Please join us for a fun day. 

A variety of Tibetan flames

Daria Juels became interested in Buddhism as a teenager and after taking a college course in Buddhism began to study Zen meditation. She lived in a Zen Buddhist community for a few years while attending art school. She met her Teacher, a Tibetan Nyingma Lama, ten years ago and became interested in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as well as the Tibetan language. Studying scriptural Tibetan with Heidi Nevin, a well-known translator, she developed her knowledge of the written language. Wishing to become fluent in the spoken language Dara travelled to Nepal five years ago where she lived for almost two and a half years studying both language and meditation practices with various teachers in the Nyingma Lineage. When she returned to the United States she furthered her studies at a translator program at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde in Northern California. Dara began doing both written translation of dharma practices and teachings for buddhist teachers as well as oral translation for her husband. She has a passion for both Tibetan language and translating the vast wealth of wisdom within the spiritual tradition into English. Her wish is participate in assuring that the blessings of the path are carried into the Western languages.

There will be no open studios until May 14/15 due to being on retreat. Once the weather warms up we will begin making larger sheets of paper outdoors using our Nepalese floating moulds and 4 x 7 foot screen (see below). We will also be cooking a variety of plant fibers in preparation to our summer papermaking courses.  So stay in touch if you are interested in these activities. 

Recap of our April 3 Workshop with Dara Juels on Writing the Six Syllable Mani Mantra

[The Jewel in the Lotus]

On Sunday, April 3, a blustery and snowy day, a small group of us met to explore writing the famous Tibetan mantra--Om Mani Padme Hum Hrih with Dara Juels, a Tibetan translator who is married to a Tibetan and lived for many years in Nepal and studied at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde in California. Dara inspired us with her enthusiasm for the Tibetan language, in particular, this mantra so widespread among Tibetans. We look forward to working with her on other mantras, Tibetan language studies and drawing traditional Tibetan motifs of the five elements. 

We learned a bit about the origins of the mantra brought to Tibet by Guru Rinpoche and its function as a vehicle of Liberation through Hearing, Seeing and so forth. 

[Dara Juels]

                                                                                                                                                                     We also listened to several readings by Dara from commentaries on the famous mantra.   She left us with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's commentary on Patrul Rinpoche's extraordinary text. The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones. 

After completing a demonstration of each syllable with brief explanations, we then applied ourselves to write the mantra over and over--each person deeply concentrating. 

[Brenda Lilly, a resident of Conway]

[Sheryl Jaffe who also took Tashi Mannox's Tibetan Calligraphy course last April]

                                                                           

                                                                            

[Here Sheryl is showing us some of Tashi's lettering of the mantra

]                                  Left to right: Amanda, Sheryl, Brenda, Dara]  

This workshop is part of a series devoted to the Lotus as a metaphor with deep meaning in many Buddhist cultures. Our Lotus Project is an international endeavor to preserve the historic schoolhouse in Conway, MA. As a gesture of goodwill, we are participating in the 2017 250th Anniversary of the town of Conway, MA by making a paper lotus float for the town's parade and handing out thousands of our handmade paper lotus blossoms.    

Recently, we began making wood blocks to print on our own paper. Our next project will be to carve the mantra to print for distribution.  

[Dara's beautiful free form mantra in gold on painted surface]

Brenda Lilly, our origamist, upon seeing the mantra written in the Lotus wondered if she could reduce our origami with eight petals to six petals in order to write the mantra on the leaves with the Hrih in the center. Here are the results--what she says, "see what happens on a snow day" when all the schools are closed for the day and teachers and students have the day off. All our members are artists, teachers and/or therapists who bring their expertise and passion to our collective experience. 

[Six petal lotus with Six syllable mani mantra by Brenda Lilly]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Our Newest Carved Wood Blocks

Our newest carved wood blocks. Eternal knot and lotus in the foreground (based on an original drawing by Glen Eddy) by Jacqueline; AH by Sheryl printed on our handmade papers. Notice that the AH is carved backwards but printed in its opposite. 

Join us for our Sunday, April 3 workshop with Tibetan Translator Dara Juels dedicated to writing the Mani mantra we will eventually carve into a wood block. 

{Dara, Sheryl and Dara's mom at our 2014 Khandroling Summer workshop}

Daria Juels became interested in Buddhism as a teenager and after taking a college course in Buddhism began to study Zen meditation. She lived in a Zen Buddhist community for a few years while attending art school. She met her Teacher, a Tibetan Nyingma Lama, ten years ago and became interested in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as well as the Tibetan language. Studying scriptural Tibetan with Heidi Nevin, a well-known translator, she developed her knowledge of the written language. Wishing to become fluent in the spoken language Dara travelled to Nepal five years ago where she lived for almost two and a half years studying both language and meditation practices with various teachers in the Nyingma Lineage. When she returned to the United States she furthered her studies at a translator program at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde in Northern California. Dara began doing both written translation of dharma practices and teachings for buddhist teachers as well as oral translation for her husband. She has a passion for both Tibetan language and translating the vast wealth of wisdom within the spiritual tradition into English. Her wish is participate in assuring that the blessings of the path are carried into the Western languages.


The workshop takes place in the yellow schoolhouse at 18 Schoolhouse Road, Conway, MA 10:00 AM-4:00 PM. Participants can also make paper, fold origami lotus' and print on the etching press if they wish. 

An Explanation of the Mani Mantra by the Dalai Lama

In Preparation for our Lotus Blossom Project

The meaning of the Mantra by His Holiness the Dalai Lama:

"It is very good to recite the mantra oṃ ma ṇi pad me hūṃ but while you are doing it, you should be thinking of it's meaning, for the meaning of the six syllables is great and vast. 

The first, oṃ is symbolic of the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha. maṇi means jewel, symbolizes the factors of method-the altruistic intention to become enlightened, through compassion and love. padme meaning lotus, symbolizes wisdom. Just as a lotus grows from the mud, but is not sullied by the faults of mud, so wisdom is capable of putting you in a situation of non-contradiction whereas there would be contradiction if you did not have wisdom. ...Purity must be achieved by an indivisible unity of method and wisdom, symbolized by hūṃ which indicates indivisibility...Thus together these syllables mean that in dependence on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech, mind into the pure exalted body, speech, mind of a Buddha."


Reprinted from Tashi Mannox Facebook and webpage

https://store.tashimannox.com/product/lapis-mani-mantra

Year of the Fire Monkey

[Original mixed media by Ingmar Pema Dechen]

Ho you Fire Monkey
Adorable Familiar of blessed places
Resourceful, enchanting
Cunning when need be
Your chatter flattens the dolts of ignorance
When you take
Charge in a carpe diem kind of way
Your ballast of confidence
Lifts our spirits
Seer of the future
Interlocutor to lost opportunities
Let’s take to heart
The ease of your swing from here to there
Always awake in the fire

2016 Losar (Tibetan New Year)

These Losar poems are part of an experimental project The Mansion of Elements to create poems for all 60 animal/element combinations in Tibetan Astrology. 

Recap of our February 27, 2016 Workshop with Sheryl Jaffe

On Saturday we had a great workshop making paper with old friends Woody and Barbara Paparazzo who stopped by for a few hours. They made some beautiful paper
from kozo, cotton and iris pulp we had on hand. Tomorrow,  I plan on beating flax in the critter after soaking it overnight and prepare another batch of pulp for our sacred papers we are still experimenting with. 

[Our friend the Critter]

[Sheryl explaining the meaning of 'couching' from the French 

and the multicultural origins of papermaking in Europe]

Following our papermaking session we made our first prints on the Kelton Etching press. OUR NEXT OPEN STUDIO will be Saturday, March 12 devoted to printing our first Lotus card edition and further origami experiments with Brenda Lilly. 

[Our first woodblocks --a lotus and an AH]

[Testing Akura non-toxic inks]

[Madeline's first mono-print DRUK (Tibetan for Dragon]

[Goofy  and  Happy with ourselves
KPC Members Tatiana, Madeline, Brenda, and Sheryl]]

Open House and Papermaking with Sheryl Jaffe at Khandroling Paper Cooperative

[Left to right: Sheryl, Margaret and Kathleen]

Please join us for another Open House and Papermaking workshop with Sheryl Jaffe at our studio in Conway, MA  located in the basement of Tsegyalgar East.

DATE: Saturday, February 27, 2016 
LOCATION: 18 Schoolhouse Road, Conway, MA 01370 (in the basement)
CONTACT: Jacqueline at 413-522-1125 or jacqueline.gens@gmail.com
COST: By donation 

This is a great opportunity to see what we do and learn the rudiments of papermaking for your own projects. For advanced papermakers---we have loads of pulp on hand (including cotton, linen, Abaca, and Kozo).  We can use our hollander beater (AKA the Critter) to make more pulp to your specification. 

We now have in our studio an etching press for embossing paper and other printmaking techniques along with a new batch of toxic fee inks. 

Sheryl Jaffe received her MA from the University of Massachusetts and BS in Multicultural Art Education from the University Without Walls. She has studied papermaking in Japan and China, at Carriage House Paper Institute and the Women's Studio Workshop. She has taught papermaking in Haiti and throughout the Northeast for many years. Besides teaching workshops, Sheryl is an art educator instructing at the Secondary level. Her paper installations, prints, sculptures and musical instruments have been exhibited throughout New England. Intuition, personal expression and joy guide Sheryl as she is the primary instructor for our workshops and classes.

Lotus Blossom Project

Khandroling Paper Cooperative is happy to announce a unique  project to support our participation in the 250th Anniversary of Conway, MA scheduled for the summer of 2017.  Conceived by Amanda Pollock, we will create an origami paper Lotus float as part of a performance by our Dzogchen Communtiy Khaita dancers during the anniversary parade. 

During last week’s Open Studio, we experimented with various origami Lotus templates brought to us by Brenda Lilly, an origami artist and resident of Conway, MA where Tsegyalgar East is located. Brenda is one of the founding members of Khandroling Paper Cooperative in 2012. 

Brenda (left) teaching us the folds 

Intense concentration as Sheryl (left) and Amanda (far right) 

work on perfecting the folds

It will now be possible to participate in karma yoga volunteer activity making paper Lotus blossoms as we will need thousands of them. As this project develops you will hear more about our unique fundraising plans to benefit the US Shang Shung Institute and, in particular, the needs of preserving the historic yellow schoolhouse which houses the Institute.

Last Saturday, we also made paper in the basement studio during our Open Studio. Sheryl brought some of her great horseradish pulp. Madeline experimented with her project to recycle analog magnetic tape containing dharma Teachings by incorporating it into the pulp when making paper. Previously we worked on creating Tibetan style amulets as a positive means of utilizing the magnet tape which can not be burned. More on this project as we continue to experiment until arriving at satisfactory results.

Madeline and Brenda getting ready to make paper

The next Open Studio will be on Saturday, January 16. 2016

for papermaking only

***

On Sunday, January 31, 2016 there will be a special printmaking session for Dzogchen Communtiy artists with Sheryl as we initiate our newly acquired  Kelton Etching Press by printing from carved wood blocks

*******

In dreams

they come with out-stretched hands

the color of malachite

giving, magnetizing

palms formed by leaf and wind,

torrential waters--

As they pass to me the lotus bud

grown up from mud

its stainless bloom

opening

An Essential Addition to our Studio

Thanks to my brother Will, we now have that most essential studio item in the form of a cone shaped stainless steel strainer to drain pulp which he purchased from Carriage House Papers. 

No more rusted and clogged colanders stuffed with stiff screening! 

No more sore backs!

The best X’Mass present ever!

An Excellent Day for Journeys

According to the Tibetan Calendar for this Wood Sheep Year, December 21 was a good or excellent day for journeys. Indeed, it proved to be the case as this was the day KPC assembled the necessary braun, truck and strategy to pick up our Kelton etching press from one basement and deliver to our own studio at 18 Schoolhouse Road. Everything went well according to plan and we sincerely thank everyone.

Moving the heavy press was a challenge as you can see from the photos of Nary Mitchell, Jim Smith and Steve Espe. 

[Removing the press from the truck]

[Jim Smith’s “sled” to get it down the stairway]

[The easy part rolling it into the studio on a “dolly”]

[In it’s new home at Tsegyalgar East]

Thanks to the generosity of the owner, we were able to purchase this fine press for a minimal amount. We look forward to experimenting with the process of embossing our papers as well as creating book covers, cards, and personal projects. 

While the guys were hard at work, here is what I did--beating cooked and cleaned Kozo and making blue azure pulp in the “critter" for mantra calligraphies for friends. 

[Pulp made from sateen high cotton count sheets with empowered prayer flags and recycled sacred texts]

[Kozo for beating to add to caligraphy recipe. These fibers strengthen the paper. I love the rubber beater that I found in our basement tool room 
which works perfectly]

***

NEXT OPEN STUDIO ON SATURDAY
DECEMBER 26, 2:00-5:00 PM

***

Greetings on this Auspicious Winter Solstice from all of us at Khandroling Paper Cooperative

The Coming of Light*

Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.*

Dear Friends (known and unknown) and Family, 

Best Wishes for the Holiday and warm wishes for your good health and well-being.  Everyday, I am grateful for the many gestures of kindness and support you all give me.  I offer each one of you my deepest aspiration for your happiness in this time of the rising light and coming New Year

Much Love Jacqueline

 

Photo Credit: Dharamsala candle by  Rosemary Rawcliff

*Poem by Mark Strand Reprinted from the Academy of American Poets website www.poets.org

Visiting the First Annual Northampton Book Arts Fair

I was inspired to stop by the first annual NORTHAMPTON BOOK ARTS FAIR at Smith College on Friday, December 4, 2015.  It’’s hard to believe that I graduated from there 37 years ago as one of the early Ada Comstock Scholars. The event was held at the swank campus center not far from from the old one where I studied for hours.

Sheryl Jaffe’s (one of our founding members and main teacher) booth blew me away, as they say, with some of her new works with her handmade papers. I especially loved the wax coated translucent boxes she made from her recent wood cuts executed at Zea Mays Printmaking Cooperative. Walter displayed a number of his beautifully bound leather books made with Sheryl’s unique fiber papers (below book he made for CHNNR). 

One aspect of the fair I really enjoyed was seeing so many poetry books made into unique artists books or small editions. This rekindled my interest in making some books of my own work and perhaps others too using our stock of interesting handmade papers here at the Khandroling Cooperative. Western Massachusetts is a hub in the world of book arts which we are looking forward to integrate into as the cooperative evolves in expertise. 

[Sheryl presenting the book to Chogyal Namkhai Norbu after a teaching, Summer 2014]

New Program Schedule 2015/2016 and NEWS

Greetings Paper Lovers

We are happy to schedule some new programs for 2015/2016 in our studio at Tsegyalgar East, 18 Schoolhouse Road, Conway MA 01341.  Stay tuned for more details as they emerge.

• Open Studios NOW every Saturday or by appointment (except 1st Saturday of every month). Check side bar for topic schedule (by donation)

• February 27th, 2016 with Sheryl Jaffe---all day from 10:00 AM-5:00 PM 
• March 19, 2016 Writing the Tara Mantra with Dara Juels
• April 2, 2016  Drawing Tibetan motifs with Yangjor

TBA - Tibetan Calligraphy Practice according to Tashi Mannox proportions

TBA  - Summer Paper Fest with Sheryl and Company. This year we are expanding our annual summer workshop on Khandroling to 3-4 days. 

TBA - Workshops in origami paper making and origami 

TBA - Special topics in bookmaking, printmaking and advanced papermaking techniques

NEWS

On Saturday, November 21 we had a productive members meeting including a presentation on The Paper Lotus fundraising project, which you will be hearing about soon. On every Saturday, (Except the first Saturday of  each month) there will be an Open Studio where participants can work on a variety of projects of interest to them including making pulp in the Critter, cooking and beating fibers, making books, creating collage and soon printmaking for embossing or printmaking techniques. Check on the sidebar of this blog for special topics. 


Visit Sheryl and Walter Jaffe’s  booth at the Northampton Book and Book Arts first Annual Fair:

Friday, December 4th, 2015 6-9:00 PM

Saturday, December 5th, 2015 10:00 AM-5:00 PM

Smith College Campus Center

100 lm Street (Route 9)

Northampton


THE SWATCH IS IN

We made it into the 2015 Yahoo Paper Group annual Swatch. Pictures forthcoming. This is our third participation in this wonderful international swatch collection from papermakers all over the world. 

New and Current Members Meeting on November 21, 2015 11:00 AM Followed by an Open House

[Tibetan Prayer Flags on Khandroling, October 2015 by Sean Quinn]

Khandroling Paper Cooperative will hold a new and current member’s meeting on November 21, 2015 at 11:00 AM  followed by an open house (1:00 PM) in our new space at Tsegyalgar East, 18 Schoolhouse Road, Conway, MA. Please RSVP to Jacqueline.gens@gmail.com

If you are interested in any aspect of papermaking or art that uses paper, please consider joining as a member-- At present we operate entirely on donations. The only obligation is to participate with enthusiasm in ways that suit your particular interests and talents.  Your artistic support is most welcome.

Visit our Open House/Studio to learn more about what we do on November 21, 2015 at 1:00 PM following our member’s meeting.

Among the skills and workshops we facilitate are:

• History of Papermaking around the world
• Asian and Western style papermaking with a variety of custom moulds up to 4 x 7 feet
• Custom made pulp from rags and plant fibers
• Silk Screen
• Non-toxic printmaking with our NEW etching press
• Origami
• Papercutting
• Gilding
• Calligraphy for Mantra
• Handmade Books
• Homemade inks and colorants for dying
• Collage

Agenda for our Meeting:

-2015/2016 Programming

-Lotus Flower Fundraising Project

-Town of Conway events

-Member guidelines

A few things on our wish list:

--A small energy efficient fridge to store pulp  

--Rotary cutters & blades  to prepare cotton rags 

--Washed*100% cotton rag sorted by color and cut into postage size pieces (if you have the time)  

--4 Large plywood boards (approximately 28" x  25.5 “ for wet pressing newly formed paper

*washed in water only to remove detergent/soap/fabric softeners

Many Thanks and hope to see some of you soon

Jacqueline Gens and KPC Members (Sheryl, Madeline, Brenda, Tatiana, Kathy and Margarita)