Week Forty Two | Through the (paper) Mill
Back to the paper grind. I really enjoy making and casting paper but it’s such a faff getting it all down from the loft and then having my whole utility room taken over. If I do this more in future I really need a better system! Loved it once I got started though.
A friend gave me an old stretcher and I found an old mosquito net from our glorious pre-children travel days. Can’t see us going anywhere exciting imminently so the net has been generously donated to the arts.
I am hoping to make more paper lace but on a larger scale. It is basically recycled paper at this point (no compost at the moment - too unstable until I figure out what I am trying to achieve) and mixed in some Kaolin for stability. Squeezy bottles and then drawing the piles of dead beech we have been systematically cutting down for the past year or so. The difficulty is in creating a fine net with the liquid paper but not so fine it just rips when dry and peeled off the net. I have no idea if this will work or prove a useful idea but I did love the tiny bits of paper lace I made before Christmas so it’s worth a shot.
I was wondering about creating layers of them so it matters less how torn they are. I also wondered about drizzling paint or compost ink over the lace, maybe.
This net idea is much more attractive than working with the sponges as it doesn’t take a week for a small piece to dry. The net means if I might even get it to dry against the radiator overnight, we will see. Stella did some videos for me to record the process and my little studio assistant Kaiser the Kitten just made the whole thing take ages...
The outcome was beautiful. But it fell apart. Again. I am going to try mixing in some starch or latex and maybe reinforce the networks with something although this seems to deviate from the integrity of the material, medium and meaning. Looking at Miriam Londono’s paper calligraphy I am wondering how she achieves it, it seems to have an integrity I haven’t managed yet. I may need shorter fibre paper pulp and something to hold it all together more. Experiments are ongoing. Her book Radical Paper is sadly too expensive but I will see if I can find my own answers. I am also wondering if she uses one of those 3D pens and whether that has any place in drawing for me…. Rather than focus and home in, I seem to be splintering off into yet more adjacent ideas… The octopus in a string bag indeed.