First Annual Artists and Artisans in Paradise Show

Hosted by the Stratford Arts Guild, the first of what will be an annual show, Artists and Artisans in Paradise was a success! Well advertised and a gorgeous late summer day brought many people to Paradise Green, in Stratford, CT. It was nice to participate in an art show in my community and meet art lovers from my town.

 A few people came specifically to meet me and see my work based on an article in the Connecticut Post. I was quoted in the article along with a few other members of the Stratford Art Guild. One woman came to give me a stack of vintage linen dish towels. She had read in the article that I peruse estate sales for cotton sheets and linen tablecloths and dish towels to turn into pulp for papermaking. The dish towels she gave me  are too beautiful and full of history to be cut for paper. I have added them to my rather large vintage dish towel collection. That was an unexpected and delightful pleasure! Another woman came to see me because she liked the way I described my work in the article. (Abstract, yet representational and inspired by nature.)

2012 Papermaking Season Has Begun

It was a beautiful, sunny day today and I was off from work, so spent some time outside straightening up my papermaking studio and setting some fibers to ret.  Mulberry, willow, kozo and gampi bast fibers were each put in a five gallon bucket with approximately six ounces of wood ash and four gallons of water. I put tightly fitting lids on them and placed them in the sun. I plan to give them a stir or tumble once a week for a month. Hopefully April will be warm and sunny so that I can cook these fibers and then beat them. Then the real fun begins!

Mulberry bast with bark

willow bast with bark

gampi

kozo

The mulberry and willow basts were gathered here on our property.  I bought the beautifully clean gampi from Keith Gum of IFUGAO Papercraft. The kozo is from Magnolia Paper.

 I am also reading up on preparing fibers for natural dyeing.  My plan is to dye the cotton sheets first this year, then cut and beat them. This should be easier than trying to mordant, rinse, dye and rinse pulp like I did last summer. From what I read, I believe I need to treat the fabric with tannin (need to find a natural source of that), then mordant twice with alum. Fibers/fabrics can be premordanted and kept indefinitely, ready and available when the dye materials present themselves! I am also planning to use this dyed cotton fabric for weaving and small sewn projects.

Papermaking Summer 2009

Spent as much time as I could between the other happenings to make paper this summer. I wanted to use pulps I had cooked and frozen over the past few years, but I also really wanted to try beating linen and cotton cloth in my Lander beater. I made one batch of beaten linen from 4 old linen tea towels. I also made pulp from a yellow cotton tablecloth. After speaking with someone at Carriage House Paper in Brooklyn, NY I decided to beat some abaca to ad to the cotton pulp to make a stronger paper for printmaking. So I had 3 pounds of pulp and other pulp that I had taken out of the freezer to use up.

It was great! Last year Bob added two windows to our old potting/tool shed and installed electricity so that I could use it as my papermaking studio. It was a great way to make the best of the hot, humid days we had in early August. Keeping my hands in the cool water helped a lot to keep me refreshed. Plus I love the meditative process of papermaking. I love that I have a flow. It took a few years to master my moves and now it comes so naturally.

Here are some videos and photos taken during the course of the summer:

This video is the beating of a yellow cotton tablecloth:





The finished pulp - ready to use!










cotton and abaca sheets of paper.






















This is the linen towels being beaten. You can see the fibers starting to separate.

Here is a condensed version of pulling sheets of gampi fiber. I used formation aid which slowed down the draining process, so cut all that footage out.





My homemade paper press in action.