Holyoke hosts inaugural Paper Festival: Crafts, exhibitions, tours, contests and more in the ‘Paper City’ this Saturday

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Holyoke was known for its thriving paper industry – that’s how it got the nickname “Paper City.” Now, over a century later, the city will celebrate the legacy and impact that paper production had on the area with the inaugural Holyoke Paper Festival.

The Holyoke Paper Festival will be on Saturday, June 7, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at De La Luz Soundstage at LightHouse.

The day’s events include workshops and sessions on crayon art, silkscreen poster-making, paper mask-making, cyanotype printing, papermaking, relief printing, “exploding” book-making, and zine-making. There will also be a tour of the Holyoke canals led by local historian Bob Comeaux, a lecture about pen and ink drawing by artist Roger Duffy, a paper airplane contest (with prizes), activities at the Children’s Museum at Holyoke, and an artist reception/wrap party with music and refreshments.

The festival will also include a fine art exhibition featuring art made on, of, or about paper, juried by Felice Caivano, artist and chair of the Holyoke Community College art department.

Festival creator Rachel Rushing, gallery director of the Taber Gallery at Holyoke Community College, lived in Texas for about 10 years before moving to Holyoke. Her inspiration for creating the Paper Festival was the large art-related community celebrations there, such as FotoFest in Houston.

An artist and self-described “local history nerd,” Rushing discovered the impact that paper had on Holyoke’s history, and she considered the lack of an existing paper festival “such a missed opportunity to celebrate something that was responsible for bringing so many different cultures to the area over such a long period of time that made the city what it is today.”

Holyoke, which was founded in 1847, was the first planned industrial community in America. At the peak of its industrialization, it produced an estimated 80% of the writing paper in America; in 1884, the city produced 200 tons of paper daily. (Its other mill exports included thread, silk, cotton, industrial machinery, and woolens – and, separately, the town is also known as the birthplace of volleyball.) According to the Wistariahurst Museum, communities who moved to Holyoke, drawn by the availability of mill jobs, included Irish, French-Canadians, English, Scottish, Germans, Russians, Jews, Italians, Poles, African-Americans, and Puerto Ricans.

Besides its economic and cultural impact on the Holyoke area, part of the idea behind the festival is that paper itself is worth celebrating.

“For me, as an artist, paper is not just a utilitarian thing, but it can become so many other things. It can become sculpture, clothing; it’s the surface that so much artwork is on,” Rushing said. “It’s such a huge and impactful part of so many different kinds of art-making, and I’ve never really seen a true nod to that in this way.”

“The fact that something that is so integral to being an artist is also so integral to the history of the city – I thought that was a really lovely pairing,” she added.

As the Paper Festival grows in the future, Rushing would like for it to involve more businesses and organizations – “whether it’s other galleries or city buildings or laundromats” – to bring more of the community to art, and vice versa. As she put it: “So often, it feels like art is this separate thing that’s unapproachable, that’s inaccessible, and then there’s community life and public life.”

“Those two things don’t have to be separate,” she said, “and I think it’s really beautiful when they come together.”

Though many of the mill buildings remain – albeit as retail establishments, apartment buildings, etc. – Holyoke is no longer powered by the paper industry. Still, Rushing said now felt like the right time to celebrate the industry because she was connected to so many people in the community who were willing and able to make it happen – a “convergence” of sorts.

She wants the festival to showcase that the city’s legacy as an important hub is ongoing, even if not in its original form.

“I hope that people are able to leave with a sense that, though Paper City is this historical identity that’s carried on through today, that doesn’t necessarily have to mean there’s nothing new happening here, that there’s no innovation happening here. There’s tons of innovation – so many small business owners and people right here in the community now, today, that are doing so many cool things.”

Admission to the Holyoke Paper Festival is free. For more information and a full schedule, visit holyokepaperfestival.org.

Carolyn Brown can be reached at [email protected].