Trout Paper was a hand papermaking studio in White Creek (Washington County, New York). It was established in 1979 by Sophia Healy in order to give artists and students access to the unusual and striking medium of handmade paper. At that time Healy was teaching drawing and papermaking at nearby Bennington College and mixing pulps for Kenneth Noland in exchange for studio time at Noland’s Gully Paper (North Hoosick, New York). Trout Paper earned its name from the plentiful brook and brown trout that swim in the nearby creek.
The studio sits at the edge of a heifer pasture, fronted by an informal garden and the trademark clothesline for drying felts. The unique contemporary artworks begin traditionally. They are created from recycled 100% linen and cotton rags – – literally discarded clothing, table linens and random pieces of fabric. Transformed into pulp through a Hollander Beater (a fiberglass and stainless steel machine that beats the cloth back into its original fibrous state); a half inch square of an old green shirt or a too-small yellow skirt becomes the green and yellow colors of the paper works.
A red stripe in a particular paperwork may once have been a red T-shirt; a blue shape probably came from an old pair of jeans. Healy explains, “We don’t use dyes, instead we incorporate the colors of the found rags as is. The colors you see in the paperworks are all rag colors, applied as pulp, while the paper is being made, and not added after the fact, as in watercolor or pastel.” Another technique used at Trout Paper is plein-aire papermaking. The papermakers work entirely outdoors and the papers are air-dried in the sun. This technique allows for higher relief in the works. The papermakers also use unbeaten cloth and paper fragments, together with embossing and surface marks in their work.
The Trout papermakers are artists from across the country who came to White Creek from 1979-2017 in the temperate seasons to make paper. They are: Alba De Leon, Denise Suska Green, Sophia Healy, Elisa Lanzi, and Monica d. Church.