The Interdisciplinary Arts Department is pleased to announce that there are studio visits available with Columbia College Chicago Book & Paper alumni, Drew Matott of Combat Paper Project on Wednesday, September 29 from 10 am – 3:30 pm. The sign-up is available outside the Interdisciplinary Arts Department office, grab a spot, time is limited!
Drew Matott received his MFA in Book & Paper Arts from Columbia College-Chicago and his BFA in Printmaking from the Buffalo State College. He co-founded the Green Door Studio, People’s Republic of Paper, the Combat Paper Project, BluSeed Paper Mill and Free Your Mind Press. The Combat Paper Project utilizes art-making workshops to assist veterans in reconciling and sharing their personal experiences as well as broadening the traditional narrative surrounding service and the military culture. Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences in the military.
The Combat Paper Project is based out of art studios throughout the United States and has traveled to Canada and the United Kingdom, providing veterans workshops, exhibitions, performances and artists’ talks. This project is made possible by a multifaceted collaboration between artists, art collectors, academic institutions and veterans.
Drew divides his time between teaching at colleges, doing art residencies and coordinating the Combat Paper Project. He has taught Photography and Contemporary Printmaking at North Country Community College, and Papermaking courses at the Community College of Vermont and Massachusetts College of Art. Last year he completed an artist residency at BluSeed Studios in Saranac Lake, NY, followed by a seven-month international tour, where he taught at the Seagull Foundation for the Arts in Calcutta, India, completed an artist residency with SKAM in Hamburg, Germany, lectured at Camberwell College in London, England and toured book and paper studios throughout Europe.
