Papermaking with Plants

Last weekend, I taught papermaking with plants for the first time in MANY years, and it was really fun. We processed kozo from cooking all the way through drying the sheets. I brought wheat straw, which I'd cooked and beaten in my blender, and we compared those sheets with pulp we processed in a blender and beat by hand. One student brought cattails, which we cooked, hand beat and made into sheets.

We also made vegetable papyrus from daikon, carrots, peppers and onions.

Books Rock!

I'm teaching at the Focus on Book Arts Conference in Forest Grove, OR next weekend and had a lot of fun designing this little pop-up. It is 100% cotton handmade paper, ink jet printed and it really rocks (literally)! I'll have them at the trade fair on Friday evening and all-day on Saturday. http://www.focusonbookarts.org

Paper from Hops

I had someone from Rogue Brewing call me up and ask if paper could be made from Hop Bines. She came to the studio yesterday and we processed a couple of bines (yes Bines) and made some lovely brown sheets. Extracting the fiber was a daunting task, so I doubt that she'll be able to process her 42 acres into handmade sheets of paper, but what a great idea!

Knot Drawings

It has been awhile, but I'm going to try to be a more consistent blogger. It occurs to me that I could blog about other people doing wonders with paper, so if anyone like that is reading, let me know what you are doing, or if you have something you would like to read about, leave a comment.

I am in the process of working on my first edition project. Here I am embedding an untied knot in between two sheets of translucent abaca paper. I'm making 6 different editioned pieces, and an additional piece which will become a broadside with a poem by William Stafford letterpress printed on it. I am also producing a suite of the knot drawings which will be housed with the broadside in a handmade box (ed. 10).

Lost Harmonies

My friend and sister artist (sounds better than fellow artist, right?) has a lovely installation up for another week at Disjecta here in Portland. She did these giant papercuts based on the four cycles of creating using Tyvek, which she suspended from the ceiling like banners. They are painted on both sides by 4th graders at her daughter's school. These same kids visited my studio last fall and made paper. Anne put together a sweet little book that you can look at (and buy) through Lulu.com. There are pictures of the kids and me in the studio on pages 7 & 8. 

Papermaking on Sesame Street

I just discovered that the Sesame Street video I was in many years ago is on Youtube. I worked with filmmaker Josh Selig to script and create this video, which was produced at Dieu Donne Papermill. I love the lyrics he wrote. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pId8pKyt9rE

Pacific University Residency

This week I did a residency at Pacific University. I visited the papermaking class, introduced them to overbeaten abaca, and had each student do a shrinkage experiment. I also lectured, screened my film and did critiques with a handful of seniors. I was impressed with their work and felt it was much more professional than way back when I received my BA at the University of the South. My exhibition, "Line Dried", which is pictured here, was on display in the library. 

Here is my statement about this body of work:

I work in collaboration with my medium -- handmade paper. This installation was made by draping wet sheets of paper over a clothes line. As the sheets dried, they contracted and twisted into these forms. I then stitched the washers onto one side of each form, creating thread patterns on the other side. The images resemble constellations, plant forms, fireworks, the big bang, etc. – metaphors for conception, growth, birth, life. I see all of these things as magical and mysterious, and this ties into my fascination with paper and the magical and invisible occurrences which take place throughout the papermaking process.