The Mark of the Maker

"The Mark of the Maker" looks at the art of manual papermaking. Kathryn and Howard Clark tell of how they got into the habit of doing this, and why they set up shop in rural Indiana. David McGowan's Academy Award-nominated documentary is one of those productions that shows a little known but useful practice. We're used to buying stacks of paper, all of them looking exactly the same, but here each sheet looks a little different. As one of the people notes, it's not that an artist is a special type of person, but that every person is a type of artist.

It's worth noting that paper doesn't have to get made from wood pulp; it can just as easily get made from hemp (DuPont lobbied for marijuana to get banned so that people would have to use its products). I would've liked the movie to go more into this topic, but it's a good piece of work otherwise. I recommend it.