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Grolier Club Exhibitions

Artists’ Tools

Paper Legacy artists made ingenious tools to aid them in the production of their papers, as the tools they needed were specific to their work and not made commercially. Here we see a sampling of their smaller creations, including a portable marbling kit, a color dispensing device, jigs and guides for repeating patterns, and a variety of mark-making tools. By the 1980s, more than a few Paper Legacy artists were making tools and equipment to supplement their incomes.

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Peggy Skycraft (b. 1941) and
Jack Townes (b. 1953)
Three rolls for decorating paper, undated.

These are only four of the many printing devices that Skycraft and Townes made to create patterns on paper. The three rollers are made with paint roll cores and, from left to right, puff paint, rubber bands, and plastic mesh.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Peggy Skycraft and Jack Townes

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Peggy Skycraft (b. 1941) and
Jack Townes (b. 1953)
Tools for dispersing paint for marbling, undated.

The first step in making a marbled pattern is dispersing paint onto the marbling bath. These tools were used by Skycraft and Townes to disperse paint spray on various size tanks. The fan brush and shortened sword hilt with wooden dowel were sufficient for tapping colors onto a small tank, but their 10-foot tank required a swifter method. For this they devised variants of this hairbrush crank tool with plastic bottle reservoir.

Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Peggy Skycraft and Jack Townes

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Photograph of Claire Maziarczyk creating a paste paper using a tool she made from plastic hair picks in Niskayuna, New York, ca. 2020.

Courtesy of Mindell Dubansky