S P O T L I G H T
T H E C R A F T O F PA P E R M A K I N G By Simon Gonzalez • Photography by Allison Potter
Westenberger, who graduated a year after
her friend, worked in the film industry in
New Orleans for two years. That’s what she
was doing when McCormick proposed open-ing
a papermaking business.
“I was on board from the get-go,” Westen-berger
Geography was the primary reason behind
choosing Wilmington.
“We wanted to be between New Orleans
and New York,” McCormick says. “We
landed in Wilmington because it’s a support-ive
community of small businesses and art-ists.
It seemed like the right place for us.”
It took almost an entire year to get up and
running. There was termite damage in the
building that had to be taken care of. They
did their own painting and minor repairs to
save money. They built furniture and molds
and deckles, the frames that hold the pulp
that becomes paper.
“After all that it was like oh yeah, we have
to make all the stuff,” Westernberger says.
“We had about a month to make all of the
products for our opening.”
When the shop finally opened in December
2016, they learned that running a start-up
small business can be all-consuming.
“We’re doing everything from deep clean-ing
managing our entire online presence to pack-aging,”
Westenberger says. “Making paper is
about 20 percent of what we do. We’ll go an
entire month without even working in the
studio because we are so busy with computer
work and budgeting and updating online.”
Moving ahead includes a project called the
Aluna Works Collective that involves col-laboration
“We love it here and want to be involved
in the community as much as possible,”
McCormick says.
39
says.
the studio to making everything to
with other area artists.
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