Paper in Nature

This past weekend I was part of the Art In Nature festival in Redwood Regional Park. Redwood Regional Park, which is about fifteen minutes away from where I live, is one of the places I go walking. Judy had mentioned something about being part of last year's festival and how much she enjoyed it, and so I applied and was accepted to make a piece, as a chance to honor a place that fulfills me so much. The work I exhibited was developed in the cast paper street art I did recently.

(For larger images, click on the pictures.)

The park is notable for Redwood Creek; its native rainbow trout have been cross-bred with other struggling trout populations throughout the US. Redwood Creek's trout are a genetically pure population that is under critical study in order to reveal new understandings about trout populations. With California's extreme drought the creek appears to be dried up completely; I'm not sure what this means for the population. This idea was the basis for this work I'm calling Upstream.

It was an insanely hot day, and yet they clocked around 5000 visitors to the event. For me, the best part was to sit (or lay) near my piece, and listen to the musicians play, and let their songs become a soundtrack of sorts. I didn't get to photograph many of the other works and performances, but here's a few!

Upcoming Workshops for Spring 2014

Pulp Painting Techniques at Magnolia Editions
Saturday, April 5, 10 AM - 4 PM
Oakland, CA

Handmade paper can act as more than sheets - finely beaten paper pulp can function like paint! When dried, the pulp painted imagery is a part of the actual paper, which can stand alone as a work of art or be transformed further with printmaking, photography, collage, painting, becoming an extraordinary mixed media creation. This class will cover various pulp painting techniques, such as direct painting, stencils, and collage inclusions. Students are encouraged to bring items for inclusions, such as fabric, old photographs, thread, lace, or other items that will not bleed when wet.

Please reserve your spot by emailing papermagnolia@hotmail.com, and don't hesitate to pass this info on to anyone you know who might be interested.

Handmade Paper from Plants
Pollinate Farm and Garden, Oakland, CA
Sunday, April 6, 1-3 PM

In this fun workshop, students will learn the basis for Western-style paper making, using edible and ornamental plant fibers. The hands-on portion of the class will cover basic paper sheet formation as well as fiber preparation and artistic embellishments. Participants will leave with several wet papers to be dried at home. This is a wet class! Please bring a new roll of paper towels and wear clothing and shoes that can get wet. This class is appropriate for children over the age of 8 when accompanied by an adult.

To register, please visit here. For more information on Pollinate Farm and Garden, please visit here.

Moringa Paper

A few months ago, I was invited to experiment with some Moringa fiber for Signa-Haiti, an NGO that is developing a biodynamic and sustainable economy in Haiti. They are promoting the growing of Moringa, a plant native to subtropical Africa whose leaves may be a superfood. However, as they continue their development, they are considering developing a artisanal paper out of the leftover stems and petioles.

Above, you can see the stems that were shipped to me. (For some reason they are being wonky about uploading, sorry if they are awkward in whatever platform or device you are viewing this on). I started by "pond"-retting the fiber. After the fiber had soaked for a few days in the sunshine, the bast fiber easily peeled off the inner stalk.

Click on any picture for a larger image.

I divided the fiber into two batches for cooking, so the second batch kept soaking while I cooked the first. I discovered that with this additional soaking, the outer green bark dissolved away, and was easily just brushed off the bast fiber with my hands! No picking chiri! However, even after cooking, the outer bark was fairly easily washed away, but if there's a next time, I'll just soak the fiber a few more days.

I was asked to keep in mind water disposal and water issues while working with this fiber, so I decided it would be better to cook the fiber in wood ash over soda ash (see here for an explanation of cooking with caustics for fiber preparation). However, I found the fiber extremely tough. I kept using the Korean fiber test, and the fibers would not tear and seemed reluctant to split. In addition, to my eye, the fiber itself just seemed harder than I felt comfortable putting in my beater. Yet after ten hours of cooking and no softening of the fiber, I switched to soda ash and cooked it for several more hours, yet the fiber still seemed like it was not getting any softer.

The second batch I began cooking directly in soda ash. Again, I cooked the fiber for almost fifteen hours, and it seemed pretty tough. However, at this point, I decided to give it a go with beating.

The fibers as they go into the beater:

After two hours or so:

After three:

To my surprise, the fibers broke down easily. I'm wondering now, if for large-scale production in Haiti, if they might not need the amount of cooking I did. Some of that might also vary on when the fiber is harvested, and of course conditions like soil and water quality. However, to answer these questions, I'd need to do more tests.

Another concern would be the smoothness of the sheets. Perhaps if I'd cooked them less, the fiber (and thus pulp), might have had a rougher quality.

Sheets were pulled without formation aid (remember, water quality), and the pulp drained on the slower side, but not ridiculously slowly. I used two moulds (Western style), trading off between draining into a small vat and pulling.

The final sheets - I got about 30 or so from the amount of fiber they sent me - are a golden color with a soft texture and little rattle. Signa-Haiti had originally asked me about bleaching sheets and mentioned their concerns over using severe bleaches, disposal, and water supply, and I had countered this with the idea that maybe they didn't need to bleach them. I personally love the natural color, however, further experiments with pool-grade hydrogen peroxide (which, I believe, would break down into water and oxygen) might yield a whiter paper.

Riding the waves

This past week has had a strange melancholy to it. The previous week, Robert was in Stanford Hospital receiving an experimental treatment, which so far has proved to be inconclusive at best, but was most likely unsuccessful. At the same time, Hurricane Sandy pummeled the East Coast, and several friends have been without power or electricity for days.

It's so odd to be here, in beautiful, sunny California, while 3000 miles away people are cold and hungry, in places like lower Manhattan, the richest city in the world. Complicated by my personal struggle as a caretaker/my partner's health issues, I end up feeling isolated and guilty. My troubles are not shared, and do not have a an end in sight, yet at the same time, are not immediately pressing like those of people in Hoboken or Staten Island.

Last year, my in-laws lost all their belongings when their house was flooded by Hurricane Irene. As fundraiser for them, I ended up selling the print above, and I've found myself thinking about it a great deal this week. Fortunately, this year, for them, the creek didn't rise enough to flood their home, although they have been without heat or electricity for a week.

I find myself turning to poetry for comfort, guidance, insight. Poets like Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, Rainer Maria Rilke. And then, today, the poem below caught my eye. I have a copy of it on my fridge. It's been there for years, ever since my senior year of college when my teacher, Shelley Thorstensen, gave it to me. I just noticed it again after being blind to it. Shelley didn't know the author, or even the title, and I can't see to find it on Google. It may actually not be a poem, just a list of lifeboat survival techniques. But it can be an overall metaphor for getting through a tough time.

Keep riding the waves.
When there's a lull, take a rest.
If you have crackers, eat them sparingly.
Icebergs are dangerous, but are a source of pure water.
Eventually, you might see a ship. Fire off the flare gun, toward it.
Wave at all aircraft, but do not yell; they cannot hear.
If raft overturns, hold ropes on all sides.
All parties must be on the same side, to turn raft upright.
Be sure the automatic harpoon is pointed towards the water.
Rebroadcast your current location at regular intervals.
If you see birds, row toward where they fly.
Beware of using sharp objects inside raft.
Do not eat any species of blowfish.
When you hear the sound of breaking waves, be ready to make landfall.
The Bermuda Triangle is populated with giant squid, a source of protein, which will feed two people for many days.
Rest as often as possible, but keep an eye on the horizon.

If anyone knows who or where this is from, please let me know in the comments.

In related news, if you feel like helping and are far away like me, text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to go specifically to Hurricane Sandy relief.

"Rag Men" at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art

Last Sunday I went to the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art for their presentation, "Rag Men," part of The Art of Handmade Paper exhibition (see my previous post here). It featured the curator, Simon Blattner, and Bryce Seidl, director of the Pacific Science Center, who is a also a paper historian and collector, as well as responsible for loaning many of the objects to the museum of the exhibition.

Most of Bryce's objects were left to him by his father, Roger Seidl, who was assigned by the US Government to assist and coordinate the rebuilding of the Japanese paper industry after WWII. Our country had bombed most of the paper mills, and during the reconstruction Roger Seidl ended up befriending many papermakers, who gifted him with some of the objects that were on display as part of the show.

Their discussion centered around the history of the commercial paper industry, which Bryce had worked in for years before his time at the Pacific Science Center. Much of it was just explaining the basics of how paper is made to those who were unfamiliar in the audience, but Bryce was able to rattle off facts - such as each person in the US still goes through 700 pounds of paper a year - that would have eluded me. He stressed that the paper industry has actually become much more environmentally friendly, with abilities to do things like recycle heat from the manufacturing for drying the paper, recycling the processing chemicals, and recycling paper in general. He stressed that the alternative to paper in most situations is plastics, from the petroleum industry, and that tree-based paper is a much more environmentally friendly alternative. Which, I guess when you think about it that way, is true. Although I will argue that that doesn't mean we shouldn't make intelligent choices about how we use paper.

Towards the end of the discussion, someone asked if either of these men thought that we would ever be a totally paper-free society, as the digital age progressed. Bryce said he didn't believe so, and also pointed out that as use of paper declines for things like books or business memos or whatever, we will still use it for toliet paper or tissues, and asked the audience to imagine a world without toliet paper. It was a very cogent point.

It was a good discussion, however I wished they had touched on the relevance, vitality, and importance of handmade paper as a contemporary art form.

I was fortunate to talk to Bryce a bit after the discussion, and he was excited to learn that I as an artist who was working with watermarks. Our discussion led him to ask the museum to pull out one of the objects they had chosen not to display out of storage, a large watermark his former paper company had produced that he wanted to show me.

I also had a chance to see the parts of the exhibition I'd missed in the crowd, such as this piece by Helen Hiebert:

Finally, I got to spend some time with the installation of Tibetan prayer flags and paper in the front of the museum. I forgot to note the information down about the story behind the piece, but nonetheless, it was beautiful.

Fibershed Papermaking Workshop

This month has been a whirlwind, and I've barely been able to keep up with this blog, as exemplified by the tardiness of this post. Two weeks ago I taught an intensive papermaking workshop for the Fibershed. Specifically, it involved a group of teachers from the Marin County school system who are incorporating sustainable and bio-regional art making activities into their curriculum.

The class covered how to paper from vegetables, invasive plants, and clothing. Here, some students harvest Andean Pampas Grass seed hair.

The class also covered various preparation methods, from hand beating, to blenders, to the beater itself. Many of the teachers really liked the idea of a classroom full of kids expending their energy by hand beating fiber, but to me it sounds like a cacophonous nightmare.

After learning about prep, we moved on to actual sheet forming. I also discussed techniques on preventing water from getting everywhere in a classroom situation. Over the course of the day, I kept making jokes about kids and how they react to various art classroom situations, and how I tend to handle them, which kept the teachers amused. One even commented that it would be very entertaining to watch me handle a group of kids making paper.

It was a great class, and great to share papermaking with a group of enthusiastic people who asked so many good questions, danced around my studio, and kept me on my toes the entire day.

"The Art of Handmade Paper" at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art

Some of the Population Dynamics series is currently part of the exhibition, The Art of Handmade Paper, at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, in Sonoma, CA. The exhibition is up till the end of December, and last Friday I went up for the opening reception.

The show is predominately focused on the history of handmade paper, featuring a few contemporary artists like myself, as well as one of my teachers, Lynn Sures:

Also featuring a tiny little hand-crank beater. This made me think of all the discussions I've had with fellow papermakers about a bicycle-powered beater (which was finally developed by Lee Scott Mcdonald), although several people found pedaling while grinding rag pretty onerous (and could you imagine trying to make something like high-shrinkage? Hours and hours of pedaling!) Anyway, made me wonder if this would be better or worse.

Two other intriguing historic objects included were these fusan bakudan, or Japanese fire balloons. For those unfamiliar with the history, during World War II, these were washi balloons that were used to carry bombs across the Pacific towards the United States, floating along Jet Stream air currents. I gather that most did not make it, but some did. It brings to mind a conversation I had with Mary years ago in which she said something to the affect of," I don't know whether to be horrified or like, YAY PAPER!"

The show is up to December 30, and there is talk with the curator on October 28 at the museum.

On a related note, I was recently interviewed by Discover Paper. Check it out here.

Watermarks in Corn Husk

Work continues on my Corporate Corn series since my last post on the topic. Above, a mould with the McDonald's logo. Below, its result, along with the Monsanto logo.

A detail of the Monsanto watermark while still wet:

A General Mills watermark, freshly pulled:

Some results fresh out the drying box:

I'm planning on a series of ten in all, all of corporations that drive our corn-based food system. I'm hoping that when seen as a group, with the knowledge that the fiber itself is corn (husk), the overwhelming basis for GMO corn in processed food systems will be apparent.

Sneak Peek - Agents of Change, Artists As Activists, installation photos

I feel like this post should begin with the words: It was a dark and stormy night, in a nod to the way Snoopy always began his novels. Thought it's not that stormy, or even dark right now, but I'm proud and humbled to be a part of the upcoming exhibition at the Jean and Charles M. Schultz (yes, that Charles M. Shultz) Memorial Library Gallery! The exhibition, Agents of Change, Artists As Activists, features work by yours truly, as well as the Guerilla Girls, Betty Kano, Art Hazelwood, Occuprint, and a few others.

Here are a few sneak peeks of the installation in progress - my Ghost Trees:

This amazing piece by Betty Kano:

Occuprint posters:

Art Hazelwood representin' Occupy Oakland:

And the Guerilla Girls!

The opening reception will from 3-5 on Thursday, September 13, and will include a voter registration drive. Hope to see some of you there!