Coming from an art school background we were interested in paper as an artists’ material and this remains the focus of what we do.

In the early 1980s we were the first to introduce Indian handmade papers to artists and designers in and around London. We worked closely with papermakers in India, and later Nepal and Bhutan.

Fifteen years ago we set up our own handmade paper mill in India with our partner, Vasudevan. Vasudevan was previously manager at the Handmade Paper Institute in Pune, a training institue for the whole of India. No one knows more about making paper and it has been a great opportunity to work with him.

Our mill is just outside the village of Tarihal near Hubli, in Karnataka, South India. This is a cotton growing area and Hubli has the biggest open air cotton market in Asia, an amazing sight. Cotton is the raw material of our papers so this is an appropriate place for our mill to be located. Here Vasudevan is joined by his cousin Subu who had previously worked at the papermill of TARA (Technology and Action for Rural Advancement) in New Delhi and his cousin Srikumar, who had also trained at Pune.

The mill, KHADI PAPERS INDIA

The mill, KHADI PAPERS INDIA, now directly employs over 50 men and women from local villages and indirectly provides work for bookbinders, printers, envelope makers and the carpenter, Irrappa, who makes our moulds and deckles. We now have our own organic farm, irrigated by run-off water from the paper mill. Here we grow mangoes, bananas and organic vegetables.

In Nepal and Bhutan we have worked with the same papermakers for over twenty years. Milan Bhattarai’s company GET Paper in Nepal was very small when we started working with him in 1983 and now employs 120 people of whom 60% are women. Milan’s company supports social projects including HIV/Aids education in 16 disrticts of Nepal. Norbu Tensin’s Jungshi Paper company supplies us traditional papers from Trashi Yangste in the far east of Bhutan.

But it’s not all work … last year we went trekking in the remote Gauri Shankar region of Nepal with Milan and Subu from our Indian factory … we’ve had a lot of adventures along the way.

From our UK warehouse we ship our papers all around the world. To see some of the work artists have produced on KHADI papers go to gallery.