Today was like no other day I have lived – I spent several hours preparing kozo for Japanese paper making. Kozo is the japanese word for a kind of mulberry use in paper making. I was interested to learn that paper-making came to Japan first by Korea and foremost to provide a worthy platform for Buddhist texts. I also learned that paper was dyed for two reasons: using color was a gesture to humble one’s craft and the pigments also served as a way to temper degradation by insects. Customarily, in Japan paper was made by farmers in the winter when outdoor work was limited. 
The kozo tree is cut down when it is one year old; the tree with continue to grow from the cut to provide a new 1-year sapling in the future. The dead wood in the center is discarded , the outside bark is stripped and it is the clean cambium layer used for the paper fiber. Tatiana, our instructor did two necessary steps in advance to move our limited time along.
She soaked and cooked the fiber in an alkali solution for 2.5 hours and let it coolovernight. We then rinsed the cooked kozo three times using a net and several buckets of water and proceeded to use tweezers to pick clean the bits of dark bark and other imperfections clinging to both the inside and outside of the kozo.
I noticed that the more invested I became in this process, the more appreciation I felt for Japanese paper.
After we cleaned the chiri (imperfections) from the kozo, we squeezed out excess water and laid the kozo out on a board in preparation for beating – a process that separates the strands of fiber laterally. 
We use what looked like a cricket bat and let gravity take it to the kozo making a loud thwap sound and causing a dent in the kozo. Once the “bat” lands, one drags it down to promote pulling the strands apart. 
Today we started beating – tomorrow we continue beating…
Paper Stars 