Description

Why We Love This

A subtle image of the moon embossed onto a simple white card has an ephemeral, other-world quality and a crater-like texture, like the moon itself. A handwritten note also keeps the almost-forgotten art of note writing alive. The card—left blank inside—is made from tree-free paper, which sends a message to conserve global resources.

Story

Because of deforestation and the high cost of wood pulp, a number of countries are turning back to earlier sources of tree-free fiber, such as cotton. Cotton fiber has a long history of being used in papermaking. (Until the mid-19^th century, cotton, hemp, and straw were the main sources papermaking.) Cotton fibers are the fine fibers left after ginning cottonseed. The inherently white fibers require fewer chemicals for processing and produce less waste than other raw materials used for papermaking. Soft to the touch, cotton papers look brighter than wood-pulp papers and printed colors appear richer on their surface. Because cotton fibers are both strong and soft, they accept impressions made during the printing process, such as the “blind debossing” technique used for this notecard. The debossing process uses a metal die to stamp an image on the paper, creating an indentation. “Blind” debossing means no ink is used, resulting in an image that is subtly exquisite.

About the Maker

The celestial and spiritual worlds inspire the works of Margins, a California printmaking company. So do earthly traditions. Margins maintains a link to our creative past by reviving patterns, processes and principles that may have been long forgotten, hidden, or, as they put it, “on the margins,” and reworking them in calendars, prints and cards. Their hand-printed works—using silkscreen, letterpress, etching, and lithography—are all created with sustainability in mind. Inks are water- and soy-based; even the wood in the frames is sustainably harvested.