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International Paper Museum-Brookline, MA
The International Paper Museum is located in Brookline, Massachusetts, and features dynamic exhibitions relating to historical hand papermaking from all over the world. It is sponsored by the Research Institute of Paper History and Technology, a 501(C)(3) non-profit education organization established in 1994. The institute's permanent collection consists of rare books dealing with historical papermaking, handmade papers that represent nearly every part of the world, and tools and equipment that have been used for making paper over the centuries.
Our current exhibition, Paper Curiosities, includes examples of paper made from unusual materials, processed by extraordinary methods, and used in unique ways. We welcome all visitors by appointment only. The museum is located inside the original Carriage House Paper at 8 Evans Rd., Brookline, MA. This was the first hand papermaking studio in Massachusetts, established in 1975 by Elaine Koretsky and Donna Koretsky. The Carriage House is a distinctive stucco building with an orange tile roof, built in 1904 to house one of the first horseless carriages in the town. When Donna moved her studio and the supplies business to New York in the early 90’s, the Carriage House was reorganized as the non-profit Research Institute and Paper Museum.
Donna is now the director and welcomes all visitors by appointment only. There is a suggested donation of $20. per visitor which includes a personalized tour and opportunity to make a sheet of paper.
Please email [email protected] to make an appointment to visit the museum.
Papermaking Expeditions
Carriage House Paper organizes papermaking tours to different countries. We are presently in the early stages of planning an expedition to Myanmar and Thailand. Please check back with us for more specific information.
Donna Koretsky led a small group to Burma (Myanmar) and Bangkok Thailand in February 2012. We had an extraordinary experience, visiting the papermakers and papermaking areas described in "The Goldbeaters of Mandalay", a book written by Donna Koretsky and Elaine Koretsky, giving an account of hand papermaking in Burma today.
In all the places we visited, general tours were given to acquaint everyone with the culture, the religion and the art of southeast Asia, all of which provided an important backdrop to the hand papermaking and the other craft and art forms that we saw.
Enjoy these images from previous papermaking expeditions.
Myanmar & Thailand
Southwest China
Historical Papermaking Films
By Elaine Koretsky
This is a compilation of mini documentaries created by Elaine Koretsky with footage by Sidney Koretsky throughout their papermaking travels from 1977 through 2008. You can now access all of these historical videos for free on YouTube by clicking the links below.
As we shall see in this video, there are two basic ways of forming a sheet of paper, namely, pouring the pulp onto a screen, or dipping the screen into the pulp. Either way, the pulp coalesces into a mat of cellulose and a sheet of paper is formed, seemingly a magical event. Within these two methods of sheet formation, there are many variations, of which we are presenting thirty. All the papermakers shown here represent unbroken traditions of papermaking, many going back in time dozens of centuries, a few even to the origins of papermaking in China over 2,000 years ago. The scenes of sheet formation in this film were selected from tremendous quantities of movie and video footage, the result of 38 field expeditions by Elaine and Sidney Koretsky, spanning more than a quarter of a century, in 43 countries. Sheet formation is observed in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Burma, Sikkim, India, Vietnam, England, and Czechoslovakia. The background music identifies the countries and regions shown in the film.
Run time: 41:42
In 2007, Elaine and Sidney Koretsky traveled to Anhui Province, China, and quite serendipitously stumbled upon a workshop making very large sheets of paper, measuring nearly 10 feet by 23 feet. The feat of making such a large sheet of paper is vividly depicted in the film and is enhanced by a sequence of slow motion videography. The fibers, cooking, beating, sheet formation, pressing, and drying are all meticulously described. The large sheet observed was xuanzhi, the finest paper made in China for hundreds of years and used for fine calligraphy and ink brush painting, displayed in large public spaces.
Run time: 20:37
In 1995, Elaine and Sidney Koretsky documented the extraordinary Buddhist Festival of Paper Fire-Balloons in Taunggyi, Myanmar. The night balloons were 30 feet high, made entirely from sheets of handmade paper, and propelled into the night sky by hot air generated by a fire element located in the open circular base of the balloon. Below the balloon was a tail of exploding fireworks, which produced a dazzling display in the night sky. Thousands of spectators watched and heard the celebration. This film also shows how the traditional paper was made and how the sheets were used to create the large sized hot air balloons. There were balloons also launched during the day in the shapes of birds, fish , and other animals, soaring into the heavens in a spectacular display. The powerful ambient sounds precluded the need for any background music.
Run time: 42:56
Formerly titled "Developments in Hand Papermaking", this documentary film deals with developments and changes in the various processes of traditional papermaking through the centuries, illustrated by showing the evolution of such processes as cooking, beating, pressing, drying, and especially the introduction of mechanization in the sheet formation process. The filmmaker ponders on what is meant by the term '"traditionally made" or "handmade" in the area of papermaking during the present time. This film is thoughtful and provocative.
Run time: 29:40
This remarkable film covers a time span from the early 1920's up to the present time, and reviews the four papermaking expeditions of Dard Hunter to see traditional papermaking in many countries of Asia, and compares them with the subsequent expeditions of Elaine Koretsky fifty years later, to the same parts of the world and the same villages actually visited by Hunter.
Run time: 30:40
Elaine and Sidney Koretsky documented the making of pith paper, usually called "rice paper", although the material has nothing to do with rice and is not paper in the strict sense. The 1987 silent film was converted into the digital format and produced as a DVD. The film thoroughly depicts the process of making this material, first made in China in the 3rd century. The pith used is obtained from the Tetrapanax papyrifera plant.
Run time: 9:39
The film is an account of traditional Tibetan/Buddhist papermaking in the Himalayas. From 1978-2004, Elaine logged hundreds of miles, traveling on bad roads and non-roads through the spectacular mountains of Asia. Despite the obstacles, she documented papermakers in remote and barely accessible areas of Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and China.
Run time: 27:42
This live slide/video lecture, given at the 2003 Dard Hunter Meeting in Minneapolis, MN by Elaine Koretsky, discusses Himalayan papermaking in terms of the spread of papermaking from its origin in China to the Himalayas. Includes scenes from Nepal, N. India, Sikkim, Bhutan, Tibet and China.
Run time: 37:30
Elaine and Sidney Koretsky investigated traditional papermaking in Vietnam in 1987 and again in 2000. The film shows the status of papermaking in Vietnam at a time when the commune system was still in effect in the early post-war years, and shows the changes which occurred after its breakdown and the resurgence of traditional papermaking by individual papermakers. The pace of life in Hanoi is captured in the filming. The background music is traditional Vietnamese.
Run time: 23:25
Elaine Koretsky revisited Ma Village in Sichuan Province, China in 1993. In this film, the documentation of the making of bamboo paper of the highest quality, known as xuanzhi, is shown step-by-step.
Run time: 15:23
In 1993, Elaine and Sidney Koretsky traveled from Xian to Urumqi China, crossing part of the Great Gobi Desert and the width of the Taklamakan Desert, following the same 'Silk Road" that Marco Polo traveled on in 1292. They traveled from one oasis city to another oasis city searching for evidence of traditional papermaking, but found none until they reached the oasis city of Khotan in the extreme western part of China. In Khotan, they found Uyghur papermakers and they documented the process in one of the workshops. The background music is traditional Uyghur music.
Run time: 18:42
In a small village near Luang Prabang in northern Laos, Elaine located one family still making mulberry paper by hand, enabling her to document traditional Laotian papermaking. The background music is the traditional music of Laos.
Run time: 28:35
Sidney Koretsky acknowledges that the original idea for this lecture given at the Dard Hunter Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2005 came from a report read by Dr. Peter Tschudin at the IPH meeting in Vienna in 1992. Dr. Tschudin reported that he had received information from a certain Comrade T'su Din that the invention of paper involved many distinguished Chinese whose names he proceeded to disclose. A Linguistic Analysis of the Chinese Role in Papermaking is in fact a spoof, inspired by Tschudin but the presentation is augmented and illustrated by vivid color slides taken by Sidney when he accompanied his wife Elaine Koretsky on her 16 paper research expeditions in remote rural villages in China. Despite the transparent hoax, the slides are authentic and depict the various steps and methods used in papermaking and present an invaluable historical record.
Run time: 34:50
This video is an account of an IPH (International Association of Paper Historians) expedition to China in 1999 led by Elaine Koretsky. It focuses on a Congress held in Xian on the Origin of Paper, attended by Chinese paper scholars, archaeologists and other experts, including the group of 16 Europeans and Americans who came with Koretsky. The film also depicts visits to five ancient papermaking villages and shows scenes of traditional papermaking, as well as scenes from various cities including paper conservation at the Shanghai museum and paper archeology at the Ganzu Institute. The background music is from the Chinese contemporary opera of the classic, The Butterfly Lovers.
Run time: 40:39
This is a DVD of the 54 page catalogue, containing 77 vivid photographs of the exhibition, and an introductory essay. All the illustrations have descriptive text. Background piano music by Chopin, but no other audio.
Run time: 48:14
This lecture, given at the Friends of Dard Hunter Meeting in Kona, Hawaii in 2008, deals with plants collected and grown in Elaine's garden. She describes 22 plants, illustrated in vivid images. She names each plant botanically, classifies the it according to the nature of the fiber, provides the common name, and describes how it is used in traditional papermaking. The plants include woody bast, herbaceous bast, woody grass, herbaceous grass, leaf fibers, root fiber, seed hair fiber, pith and papyrus.
Run time: 22:21
This film by Elaine and Sidney Koretsky is based on two trips to Bangsoom Village, Thailand in the 1980s to locate and document papermaking in the same village that Dard Hunter had visited in 1935. At that time Hunter documented papermaking by the Niltongkum family, the only papermaking workshop in the village. In 1986, the Koretskys located the same village and noted that another generation of the Niltongkum family were the only papermakers still left in Bangsoom Village. They documented in detail papermaking by the two Niltongkum sisters who were children when Dard Hunter made his visit 50 years earlier. The sisters were making paper for the Royal Family of Thailand.
Run time: 17:52
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