Switch Grass Paper

A papermaking studio in the works

Switch Grass Paper

A papermaking studio in the works

Our Story

Aya Nakamura and Megan Diddie are Chicago based artists who became friends at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As their studio practices evolved, they started incorporating handmade paper and pulp into their work. Megan Diddie attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for graduate school. During this time, she worked as a graduate research assistant at Fresh Press Laboratory, a papermaking studio founded by Eric Benson and Steve Kostell. Fresh Press explores different materials for papermaking and sustainable design practices. After graduate school, Megan introduced Aya to the studio and they began traveling together to access the equipment. The journey to the studio from Chicago is two hours one way. During these long drives, they began talking about how they could bring papermaking to Chicago. Switch Grass Paper is the idea born out of months of conversations about papermaking, prairie, land immersion, and art.

Our Story

Aya Nakamura and Megan Diddie are Chicago based artists who became friends at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As their studio practices evolved, they started incorporating handmade paper and pulp into their work. Megan Diddie attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for graduate school. During this time, she worked as a graduate research assistant at Fresh Press Laboratory, a papermaking studio founded by Eric Benson and Steve Kostell. Fresh Press explores different materials for papermaking and sustainable design practices. After graduate school, Megan introduced Aya to the studio and they began traveling together to access the equipment. The journey to the studio from Chicago is two hours one way. During these long drives, they began talking about how they could bring papermaking to Chicago. Switch Grass Paper is the idea born out of months of conversations about papermaking, prairie, land immersion, and art.

What's Happening Now

We are currently preparing a series of paper making workshops that will travel throughout Chicago in 2024. These workshops will focus on paper made with prairie grasses and incorporate some other art making processes. We have both been inspired by the prairies of Illinois and want to use locally sourced fibers to foster discussions about landscape and plants during the workshops. Our long term goal is to run a studio space for those interested in accessing equipment, learning about paper making, and experimenting with fiber materials. You can follow our story on Instagram.


Read more about our journey on the Switch Grass Blog page.

As artists working with handmade paper, we have experimented with it to see what it can do. We have made books and sculptures from it, created shaped molds to give it new form, and embedded materials into it to add layers of meaning. We envision Switch Grass as a studio that empowers us to explore, share knowledge and connect.

Contact : switchgrasspaper@gmail.com