Last summer, Drew Matott of the People’s Republic of Paper gave a class in 17th century paper making at the San Francisco Center for the Book. My friend Pam met Drew while he was in SF, and later met him at Columbia College in Chicago to learn to make paper herself. She brought back with her a huge pile of the most beautiful paper — and many of us have been watching excitedly as Pam finishes the paper and puts it to use in a book she’s writing. While in Chicago, she got involved with the Combat Paper Project — a group of Iraq war veterans who have cut up their uniforms, turned them into pulp and paper, and then that paper into books of poetry, broadsides and works of art. Pam has some of the paper they’ve made — with visible bits of uniform — that is quite moving to see. Even more moving is this short documentary of the project, showing the veterans making paper and using the act of making art to transform their war experiences.