Handmade Papers of Vancouver’s Reg Lissel at SFU Library

An exhibit of handmade paper by Reg Lissel runs until the end of this year at SFU Special Collections, W.A.C. Bennett Library, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC.

Here's a brief bio of Reg from the Lissel Fonds at SFU:

Reg Lissel grew up in northern Alberta and was a bookseller in the early 1990s. He owned a bookstore in downtown Vancouver before he commenced his handmade paper business. He is interested in handmade Western and Japanese papermaking arts. His paper mill is his two-storey apartment located at Shanghai Alley in Vancouver’s Chinatown. He has published a paste paper sample book, TOPOS, in 2006.

More information about the show, from SFU Library:

The traditional art of making paper by hand has not been forgotten since its conception in China during the year of 105 A.D. Industrialization, expanding rates of literacy, and an increasing need for paper led publishers to prefer machine-made paper. Thus, handmade paper is now a niche market dependent on a select amount of papermakers who embed their work with expressions of individuality.  Reg Lissel of Heavenly Monkey is one of them.

Special Collections has a wealth of material on the work of Lissel, a Vancouver-based papermaker.  The Reg Lissel Collection contains introductory drafts and paper samples of Lissel’s publication Topos: A Collection of Paste Papers (2006) along with other handmade papers created between the years of 1994 and 2010.  Many different types of papers may be found within the collection, including cotton, flax, linen, kozo, gampi, and paste.

Lissel began making paper after leaving his position as a Vancouver bookseller during the early 1990s.  His papers, the majority made with Western Canadian plant fibers, are used by artists and Heavenly Monkey, a Vancouver press.  His handmade cotton papers, on display at Special Collections, have captured his personal expressions of individuality – that being artistry and ownership – in their fibers.

The current exhibition features items from the Reg Lissel Collection and materials concerning the history and creation of paper. Check out this exhibition from October to January.