Not a planner. A practice.
Papermancy is a blend craft, cognition, and quiet rebellion: collage, structure, ritual, and reflection. It is a sensory-rich return to the analog magic of ink and paper, the shared pleasures of the pen with others.
This is more than simply a crafty workshop – in fact, you may already have journals and such you'd like to use, or you may want to order something pre-made. Papermancy is a modular resource from which you can draw what you want or need when you like.
Each workshop – called "signatures" – will be a four-week gathering of interested minds. Each week through text, video, and livestreams we will explore the potential of our unique, personally crafted Papermantic tools. Whether you shape, decorate, or simply use each of the four elements, you make them your own through rituals and practices designed to help you think through your hands.
Here's what's in Chapter One of Papermancy:
- A Pocket Codex, perfectly sized for zines, where you can collect meaningful quotes, capture memories, or just jot down a grocery list – whatever serves your needs the most.
- A Monthly Grimoire, perfect for daily journaling – if that's what you want to use it for. Of course it can also be used for sketches, for stories, research, or really anything, because it is yours.
- A "Fragmentarium" – what some would call an "ephemera folder," but we papermanced a more fun term for a place to keep the little scraps, tickets, images, and more that become the artifacts of our busy days, as we change their nature from carelessly disposable to deliberately cherished.
- A Bookcharm, which takes the simplicity of a bookmark and personalizes it into a talisman with powerful capacity for connection, quests, and the indulgences of media.
What does a Papermancer need?
All you really need is the ability to make marks. Pencil, pen, paper, wax tablet, you can adapt and adopt the rituals and practices to your preferred form of physical notation.*
Chapter One of Papermancy will be accessible to anyone with access to basic office supplies (glue, tape, paper) and also give experienced papercrafters and bookbinders an opportunity to indulge in their art.
A full list of materials and tools (both basic and robust) will be provided, or you can order pre-cut (or even pre-assembled) Papermancy kits handmade by Gray shipped to you**.
You can also choose your level of immersion, with multiple ways to develop your practice. Here are the elements of each signature (group of papermancers):
- permanent*** access to all videos, downloadables, and other materials for Chapter One of Papermancy (the basic kit and practices).
- access to the members "Papermancy" discord channel, (text and video/voice) to share and interact with others in your signature during weekly "office hours".
- PDF versions of Papermancy zines with new practices to try such as the "Inktrace" reflection, the "Dawnlines" morning ritual, or the focused power of the Linea Facienda.
Each Signature of papermancers can choose how involved they would like to be – there is no need to join or participate in any livestreams or discord conversations. You will have everything you need for your own Papermancy Practice with just the videos and other downloadables.
Click here to be added to the waitlist when the next Papermancy Signature is announced!
But if you'd like to go deeper...there are the Stacks.
Papermancers are a community of bookbinding geeks, library nerds, passionate scribes and disciplined notarians. The Stacks is a monthly (or annual) membership that gives you more:
- Discounted Papermancy materials (hand-sourced by Gray) such as pre-cut kits, themed ephemera packs, or custom-made fully-assembled book crafts.
- Themed Fragmentarium printables to embellish your own Papermantic creations.
- Monthly guided creative rituals to explore as a group or individually (recorded and accessible any time in the Stacks Archive)
- First access and discounts to unique pieces made by Gray (notebooks, art, etc) and other associated artists.
- Invitations to live interviews with Papermancy-adjacent creators such as creative revolutionary Jennifer Moon, artist (and Papermancer) AJ Wild, author Ferrett Steinmetz, and more.
More information on the Stacks is coming soon!
\* While I have nothing against paperless notation devices, this is not a workshop for tablets or other e-ink devices.
** At the moment, shipping is limited to the domestic United States. We hope to make it available internationally soon.
*** I say "permanent" rather than "lifetime" because I can't really predict how long a life will be, but I can promise that as long as they exist I can keep them available.