At Fresh Press we like experimenting with fibers to make a variety of paper! Check out the different types of paper we've made here.
"40 Hour Dollar," 6x11x5" (2015) by Karen Spiering
In 2015, we opened our studio to University of Illinois MFA Studio artist Karen Spiering, whose "life and work revolves around deep place knowing and the pursuit of stronger connections to the land/earth." After being trained on the equipment, she brought in old burlap bags to recycle into paper. We had never experimented with burlap as a material before, but allowed Karen to explore the material in our studio. The results were gorgeous. Karen made multiple "brown lunch bags" that were displayed both folded and stacked (on a pedestal) and opened and on the floor of the gallery.
We're lucky to have so many rock star student workers at Fresh Press who have helped us get to where we are today.
Normally we hate the phrase "welcome aboard" when hiring a new person to the the team, but based on Jenelle's photo, we feel it is appropriate this time (only)! So ... Fresh Press is pleased to announce that Jenelle Davis has joined us for this fall 2017 semester to help with outreach and research.
Jenelle proudly hails from Saskatoon, Canada. She holds both a BA and MA in Art History from McGill University and the University of Toronto respectively and is working towards a PhD in art history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a focus on the politics of memory and a diverse range of commemorative practices and the memorialization of traumatic events. Jenelle has worked as a curator, art critic and expert piñata-maker to name a few of her professional endeavors and has spent several years working, traveling and studying abroad. Jenelle is dedicated to promoting art as social practice, redefining the borders of public art, fostering broader inclusivity and participation in the arts, and to supporting Canadian hockey.
In our cooking process, we use rainwater collected from our lab rooftop. We use 5 gallons of water per stockpot and save 15 gallons of municipal water per cooking cycle. Overall we save 60 gallons of water/month.
We started Fresh Press because we wanted to make sustainable paper that renourished the environment and could change the industry. Everything we do here, we keep our natural environment and human/wildlife health top of mind. We aren't perfect. No one is, but we are trying. This section details our successes and shortcomings when it comes to minimizing our environmental impact.
From the Sustainable Student Farm to Fresh Press to the South Quad at the University of Illinois, our paper travels a total of 4.4 miles emitting about 4 lbs of greenhouse gases (if we drive!). Compare that mileage to tree-fiber paper which has to travel around 2.700 miles from the Boreal Forests in British Columbia, Canada to paper mills in Wisconsin and finally here to campus. With Fiber you save 2,353 lbs of greenhouse gases by transportation from entering our atmosphere. If you factor in manufacturing, our paper prevents even more greenhouse gas emissions.
We started Fresh Press because we wanted to make sustainable paper that renourished the environment and could change the industry. Everything we do here, we keep our natural environment and human/wildlife health top of mind. We aren't perfect. No one is, but we are trying. This section details our successes and shortcomings when it comes to minimizing our environmental impact.