Last week I took a workshop with a few of my PAAM colleagues taught by papermaking master, Sheryl Jaffe.
Sheryl creates beautiful handmade paper and paper art. Her work explores celestial connections realized through earthly materials: plants, bones, seeds, fibers, shells.
Paper is made by breaking down fibers into a pulp, mixing them with water, and pulling a screen-covered wooden frame through the pulpy water to create a single sheet. Scientifically speaking, this sheet is the result of hydrogen bonding, where the fibers weave and intertwine themselves. Now as one, each sheet of paper is a completely new thing, alchemically transformed from bits of plants into an object that can record words, tell stories, or be it’s own beautiful piece of art.
We set up stations to make paper from jeans, kozo, cedar, and an abaca/linen blend. Pulp was added to a water filled tub large enough to hold the mold + deckle. This is a set of wooden frames: an open frame and one with a tightly woven screen stretched across. The open frame, or deckle, goes on top of the mold before being slowing submerged into the pulp mixture. The mold + deckle is shimmied a little in the pulp mixture, and then lifted out. Excess water drips off and the pulp is left behind in a thin sheet.
The sheet is carefully flipped over onto a cushiony surface where you can add elements to the paper: fibers, seeds, leaves.
These spider-y looking pieces are bits of kozo, Japanese mulberry. They start out as strands of bark that can be pulled apart, revealing a web of fibers.
Shredded jeans create this incredible vibrant blue. Here, I layered the kozo on the blue jean paper; it will be imbued into the paper as it dries.
These spider-y looking pieces are bits of kozo, Japanese mulberry. They start out as strands of bark that can be pulled apart, revealing an intricate web of fibers.
Layering kozo on the blue jean paper; it will be imbued into the paper as it dries.
Papermaking is a very sensory experience. Pounding the fibers in a steady, loud rhythm. Warm water up to your elbows, dripping and sloshing around everywhere. The fibers feel silky, strange. Pulp changes like magic before your eyes, from fluid to a solid sheet. In papermaking, you are both scientist and artist.
I left feeling fascinated by the process and inspired by the results.
My thanks to Sheryl for being so generous with her kindness and knowledge, and her enthusiasm for papermaking.
