Paper: A material conversation

I have been going through some old folders of work and came across some images I made when I used to work with Foundation students paper making. The images were from 40 years ago, but I decided that paper making could still offer interesting possibilities and that it might be something to return to once I have completed the various projects I'm now engaged in, in particular as a way of making surfaces that can have things embedded into them.

The first and possibly most important issue is the 'conversation' that it is possible to have with both the various processes involved and the materials that go into the making of a sheet of paper. Now that I am more aware of animism as an approach to making connections with the world, I'm finding it much easier to let my mind drift into the lives of things that are not human. As to the material nature of paper, the 'ur-history' of cotton rags could also include the previous lives of cotton clothing wearers, as well as rag pickers, whilst some papers may have embedded into their histories stories of mass tree planting for re-forestation. Hand made papers might include vegetable materials available locally, therefore the lives of local plants might be woven into the story. I went to an interesting exhibition in Leeds over the weekend by Invisible Flock, 'This is a Forest'; an exhibition that tells the story of the artists’ journey across sites in Leeds in an attempt to reclaim a part of the city as a forest. I could easily see how paper making could have become much more embedded into the project they were developing, especially if paper had been collected from the various sites explored and then pulped and mixed with plant fibres also available from plants now growing on the sites. There was a handout available made of handmade paper, that used sawdust made from a tree that had died in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, something that perhaps triggered my thoughts for today's ramble, but I wanted the paper making to be more conceptually embedded into the process. However that was my own 'this is what I would do' response, and it was great to see a big space devoted to a serious attempt to get an idea across in a visual art form. In fact Leeds has been lucky lately and we have had some excellent visual art to experience, such as 'And She Built a Crooked House' by Gemma Anderson-Tempini an exhibition that is still on and which fills the rooms of Burton Grange house in Headingley, as well as the opening last weekend of Hibiscus Rising by Yinka Shonibare. I. e. art matters and if you are a student studying art in Leeds this is a great time to get out and visit these exhibitions. 

However, back to paper making.
If you are going to make a practical start and want to have some results quite quickly there is a basic set-up.
First of all you will need a mould and deckle. The mould is a frame covered with metal or nylon mesh, and the deckle is the frame that sits on top of the mould. This how to do it video suggests that you use two ready made picture frames as a simple and quick way to get these made.

How big your frame is will be vital to how you proceed. If only small you can overlap each sheet as you transfer it and gradually construct much larger sheets.

Your mould and deckle will need to be pushed down into a tub of water with suspended particles of fibre floating in it. But you can get over the need for a deep tub by pouring the paper suspension directly into the mould if you keep it in a large jug. You then need to transfer the wet paper suspension onto a flat absorbent surface, such as a felt mat. 

Typical papers made by recycling 

This is a step by step guide to making small paper sheets. 

If you follow the simple steps in the guide, one thing you might consider is overlapping the small sheets as you transfer them from your frame, so that you can build larger and larger sheets. As you do this you can also embed other things into the gradually growing area of paper. This takes far more time, but much more ambitious projects can emerge from this. 

David Hockney: From the Paper Pool series

Essentially you are making what is normally thought of as a surface on which to make marks, into a substance that will make your visual communication directly. Either as in Hockney's 'Paper Pools', as a substance that carries the image directly by being 'painted' with, or as a material that can be applied as a new surface on other things, or as in papier-mâché, as a building material.

David Hockney came across the technique of working directly in paper pulp at the Tyler Graphics studios in upstate New York. This involved dyeing wet pulped rag papers, which were then applied in various ways to recently-created and still wet paper substrates, until once a satisfactory image was made, they were finally pressed flat and dried. There were opportunities for Hockney to manipulate the application of colour at all stages and the final result was a cross between paper-making, print-making and painting. I am learning new techniques in stained glass manufacture and in their very restrictions find invention. Hockney also found learning a new technique and its specific restrictions, facilitated invention. He realised the process could be very conducive to variations on a theme, in particular, swimming pools and the effects of different lights and movements on their water. In Paper Pools, Hockney addresses a formal and paradoxical problem: how do you depict the elusive, ever-changing qualities of a body of water, using a flat, stationary, two-dimensional medium? In these images, colour does not sit on the surface, it is fused and completely integrated. Like water itself, light and movement are subsumed into these works, and in doing this, Hockney is able to close a conceptual loop between what is represented and how to represent it.

Peter Gentenaar and Patricia Torley are a couple who specialise in organic paper making. Their website also gives tutorials on how they work with paper, Patricia Torley in particular offers some fascinating insights into possibilities for painting directly in paper and Peter Gentenaar uses paper to develop three dimensional structures. 

Patricia Torley

Peter Gentenaar

Hockney has a much clearer grasp of the conceptual issues surrounding this type of approach to image making, but you can learn a lot of techniques and technical approaches to paper working from specialists like Torley and Gentenaar. 

Anthony Caro: Paper sculptures

Anthony Caro used paper casting processes to work through ideas for sculpture. He would press paper pulp onto smooth plaster forms, then cut, fold, squash and join the dried sheets to create ideas for sculpture. 

The artist Wangechi Mutu, often uses paper pulp. In her case she uses an oatmeal-like mush made from a range of papers and added ingredients that are chosen to give the work specific meaning, such as particular soils or coloured dyes. Mutu first came up with her paper formula when adding the final layers to the Afrofuturist sculptures she created for the 2015 Venice Biennale, wanting to recreate the organic look of mud-brick houses traditionally built by women in Kenya. 

Wangechi Mutu: Mirror, 2016
Paper pulp, soil, wood glue, and mirrors

This is her basic recipe:

Step 1: Shred enough paper to fill a one-gallon container. Fill three-quarters full with boiling water. The paper will absorb the water. Mix contents with a wooden spoon. 

Step 2: Cover container with an airtight lid and put mixture aside for a week. (If you have a strong good quality blender, at this point you might blend) Add two cups wood glue, and stir until all shreds are soaked in water and glue. The glue will lighten and fluff the mixture. 

Step 3: After the mixture sits for a week, it will be time to strain the pulp. Place a sieve over a bowl and pour the paper mixture in.

Step 4: Press on the pulp in the sieve with a spoon to remove excess liquid; discard liquid. Add half a cup of rubbing alcohol to the remaining paper pulp to kill bacteria. The texture should be the consistency of tacky oatmeal.

Step 5: Wearing plastic gloves, take a handful of the mixture and form a ball. Knead and shape it in your hands.

Step 6: Place the ball on a flat surface and sprinkle with coffee grounds, tea leaves or paint pigment on the surface. Compress the ball and add more pigment to stain it further and form a coloured coating. Add more liquid pigment to the mixture for additional colour. It now works like paper clay.

Step 7: Shape the paper clay mixture into a sphere, a sausage or whatever shape you desire and begin to explore its formal possibilities. Some forms will work but others will not. 

Step 8: Mould the paper clay over anything you might want to cast, or simply cover, by putting cling film over objects and pressing the paper onto them and then you can link to any other forms you might have made by laying more paper clay around, over and into joint areas and once again pressing tightly to adhere the mixture. 

Step 9: Set the forms to dry (ideally outside in the sun), where the colours will change and cracks may form. As you get used to this process you may begin to add reinforcing materials such as muslin. 

Wangechi Mutu: Sentinel IV 2020: Paper pulp, wood glue, soil, emulsion paint, charcoal, ink, coconut hair, Natal Rhus (Rhus Natalensis), Silver Oak (Grevillea robusta), Croton (Croton Megalocarpus) and Jacaranda (Jacaranda Mimosifolia)

Wangechi Mutu uses paper pulp to bring together various materials, so that they have one harmonious surface. She also mixes into her pulp locally sourced earth and colourants. The materials embedded into her 'Sentinels' all have specific meanings, for instance the African tree 'croton megalocarpus' is known for its high nitrogen content, and its leaves are often therefore used for mulch. Traditional medical uses for croton include the bark, seeds, roots and leaves being used for medicinal purposes such as the cure of stomach ailments, malaria, wound clotting, and pneumonia. This Sentinel also acts as a healer, and as a harbinger of the acute imperative to improve our relationship with each other and our planet or we will have to accept that environmental destruction will inevitably decide the fate of us all.

There is so much paper around that it is a natural material to use for anyone that wants to reflect on a society that creates too much waste. I am suggesting very home made ways of working with paper, but commercial print operations take the making of paper pulp prints to high levels of technical sophistication, in particular it is fascinating to see how the artist Chuck Close used paper pulp technology to have prints made of his portrait work. 

Paper pulp printmaking processes 

Paper pulp printmaking processes: Chuck Close paper prints

See also:

Paper and sustainability
On line books on paper
Research into paper
More thoughts about paper
Paper sizesPaper: Folding and the songs of trees

Making your own mark-making tools