Michael Fallon is the executive director of Hand Papermaking. After graduating college with degrees in literature and art, Fallon studied books with the artist Buzz Spector and eventually became fascinated enough in them to earn an MFA degree in book arts at the University of Alabama, where he focused on letterpress printing and hand papermaking. In 1998 Fallon moved to Minnesota, where he served as an artist in residence at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and published an article on paper—his first published arts writing—for Hand Papermaking magazine. He eventually wrote for local and national publications such as Public Art Review, Art in America, and American Craft. In 2005, Fallon went back to school to earn a degree in nonprofit arts management and now has more than ten years of experience managing arts and educational nonprofits.

Mina Takahashi is the editor of Hand Papermaking. Formerly executive director of programs at Dieu Donné Papermill in New York, she directed artist residencies and publishing projects, curated exhibitions, and collaborated with artists in the studio. Trained originally in Japanese papermaking, she teaches and consults on the artistic and craft applications of hand papermaking across the country and internationally.

Karen Kopacz is the designer of Hand Papermaking. She graduated from Columbia College with a BA in fine arts, minoring in fiction writing. For nearly 2 decades, Karen has worked and collaborated in the Twin Cities arts community as a designer, brand strategist, Web developer, and artist. In 2000, she founded Design for the Arts, partnering with organizations, businesses, and artists to develop and launch brands and creative initiatives. As director of online arts & literature magazine Mental Contagion (2000-2008), she was invited to be a panelist at the SXSW Interactive Festival for Fostering New Culture on the Internet.

Sophia Hotzler (she/her) is a papermaker, photographer, and crafter living in Minneapolis. She was first introduced to the skill of papermaking while attending the University of Manitoba, where she graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, with honors. She teaches paper classes at the Avon Hills Folk School and co-hosts a handmade paper exchange program based in Minneapolis. When she’s not in the vat pulling sheets, she can be found printing digital photographs and making journals with her handmade paper.

Jazmine Catasús is a New York artist and educator. After studying printmaking at CUNY-Hunter College, she trained as a papermaker at Pace Paper and Dieu Donné. While at Pace Paper she worked on projects for artists such as Jane Hammond, Will Cotton, and Donald Baechler. Jazmine has taught printmaking and papermaking workshops at Dieu Donnè, the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, the International Print Center of New York, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Noguchi Museum. She is currently the Studio Coordinator at the EFA- Robert Blackburn Printmaking workshop in New York City and a Printmaking Technician at the Cooper Union School of Art.

Kelly Taylor Mitchell is an installation, book, and print artist currently based in Atlanta, GA. Kelly earned her MFA from The Rhode Island School of Design and BFA from Tufts University, School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She has participated in artist residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center (CO) and The Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MN). Her work has been featured in museums and galleries nationally including: Second State Press, Philadelphia, PA; Anderson Brickler Gallery, Tallahassee, FL; MCBA Main Gallery, Minneapolis, MN; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; and Not Gallery, Austin, TX. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Spelman College.

Lisa (Switalski) Haque is an artist living and working in Miami, Florida; her work can be viewed at LISAHAQUE.COM. She was a Studio Collaborator and Production Manager at Dieu Donné, and a papermaker and bookbinder at the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers University. She holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts from Columbia College Chicago, and has taught at Rutgers University, the University of Georgia Study Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy, and at a variety of other centers in the United States.

Candy Alexandra González is a Little Havana-born and raised, Philadelphia-based, multidisciplinary visual artist, poet, activist and trauma-informed educator. Currently, Candy’s artwork explores themes of body politics, fat phobia and self-healing through photography, poetry, printmaking and papermaking.

Candy received their MFA in Book Arts + Printmaking from the University of the Arts in 2017. Since graduating, they have been a 40th Street Artist-in-Residence in West Philadelphia, a West Bay View Fellow at Dieu Donné in Brooklyn, NY, a Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation Micro-Grant Recipient, and the Linda Lee Alter Fellow for the DaVinci Art Alliance.

Erik Saarmaa is an intellectual property attorney, living and working in the Boston area. He and his wife are avid collectors of works on paper and active supporters of the arts. Erik has a Juris Doctor from Suffolk University Law School, and a SM in Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering from Stanford University, and a SB in Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Marie Bannerot McInerney is a multidisciplinary studio artist and educator. Her site-responsive installations and discrete works in concrete, silk, handmade paper and canvas consider human agency within the framework of ecological systems, mystical thinking, and natural phenomena. She is a 2018 Charlotte Street Artist Award Fellow, a current resident at Studios Inc. and has exhibited extensively across the United States and abroad. Marie serves as associate professor in the Fiber Department at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Richard J. Baiano is the President and Owner of Childs Gallery in Boston, MA. He has served on the Executive Boards of the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA), and the Danforth Museum of Art. He also served on the steering committee for the Patron Program of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and recently finished a six year term as Chair of the Boston Chapter of Save Venice. Prior to joining Childs Gallery, Richard worked as an architect at GUND Partnership. His degrees in architecture include a BS from Clemson University and an MArch from Syracuse University. He resides in Boston and is an avid art collector, who has been engaged in the buying, selling, and appraising of American and European art for the past twenty-three years.

Steph Rue is an artist and papermaker based in Sacramento, CA. She received her MFA at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, and studied traditional book and papermaking on a Fulbright to Korea in 2015. Steph is co-founder of the Korean American Artist Collective and co-founder of Hanji Edition, a publisher of limited edition works made with Korean paper.

Lynn Sures is a recent Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2018-2020 President of North American Hand Papermakers, Founding Director of the Collegiate Paper Triennial, and guest editor of the 2016 Winter issue of Hand Papermaking magazine. Recent artist residencies were at Olorgesailie, Kenya; Museo della Carta (MCF) in Fabriano, Italy; and Museu Molì Paperer de Capellades, Spain. Her art is in collections of the US Library of Congress, Yale University, and NY Public Library’s Schomburg Collection. http://www.lynnsures.com Instagram @lynnsures

Megan Singleton is a practicing artist, educator, and mother located in St. Louis, Missouri. The investigation of ecological relationships within society and the landscape is the basis of her work. As an interdisciplinary artist, she create works that resonate with the materiality and rhythms of the natural world. Her creative practice intertwines sculpture, handmade paper, found objects, photography, and books arts. She actively exhibits and was the recipient of the St. Louis Regional Arts Commision Artist Fellowship Grant, the Smelser-Vallion Visiting Artist Fellowship in Taos, MN and has participated in Artist Residencies across the US.

Kazuko Hioki is the Preservation Librarian at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library. She earned an M.I.L.S with a Certificate of Advanced Study in Conservation from the University of Texas at Austin, and was trained and employed as a conservator at various institutions, including the University of Kentucky Libraries, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. Before her career in conservation, she was a chemist at the Sumitomo Chemical Company in Osaka, having completed a Bachelor of Agriculture degree focused on Pesticide Chemistry from Kobe University. She has lectured and published widely on various topics related to conservation and preservation, ranging from sustainable environmental control and disaster preparedness to the physical characteristics of printed books and recycled papermaking in 18th -20th century Japan. More information about her research can be found here: http://works.bepress.com.

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Amanda Degener is co-founder of Hand Papermaking magazine and produces sculpture and artist books using handmade paper and various other materials at Cave Paper Editions. She received an MFA in sculpture at Yale School of Art and a BA at Bennington College. Amanda travels internationally to show her artwork and conduct lectures and workshops. You can learn more about her work at http://amandadegener.com/.

Michael Durgin co-founded Hand Papermaking with Amanda Degener in 1986 and served as its editor for 18 years. He was first exposed to making paper by hand in 1980 and has studied and been deeply engaged in papermaking and book arts ever since. For the last few years, he has sold books for charities in Beijing, Silver Spring (Maryland), and Frankfurt (Germany), where he now lives. He was the guest editor of a special issue of Hand Papermaking (Winter 2014) devoted to China.