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journal |
November 2001 |
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11-2-01 With fall and the frost, harvest pickings are becoming short. I must be getting desperate since I went back to a source that has yielded nothing in the past. Some time ago I tried the bast from Ailanthus or Tree of Heaven. (Locally it’s called the Weed Tree because it will sprout up anywhere and grow quickly, even in pavement cracks.) The bast yielded fibers, but they were coarse and somewhat sticky, not anything that could be pulled into a sheet. Today I checked the leaf stems. (If you are not familiar with Ailanthus, the leaves are pinnately compound with the central leaf stem sometimes as long as four feet.) Breaking the green leaf stems yielded fibers that could be pulled off, but they seemed to be either weak or short, since they would only pull three or four inches before tapering off to nothing. I steamed a few stems, hoping the fibers would slip more easily, but that didn’t seem to help any. The stem itself was fibrous, so I cut a number of them into 2” pieces, cooked in washing soda and ran through the blender. That yielded pulp that pulled a very coarse but pretty light brown sheet, but the paper quality would be greatly improved by the addition of abaca or some other fiber. Bleaching produced a sheet that was even coarser but extremely texture interesting. ** Harvested the Mexican Hat plants from the flower garden, cut stems and leaves into 2-3” sections, cooked, pulped and pulled sheets. Made a lovely green paper showing yellow fibers and interesting flecks of black seeds. Bleaching the pulp produced a tannish-cream sheet. The black seed flecks are extremely prominent and make a lovely highlight. 11-5-01 Discovered today what happens when you put undercooked plant material in a Hollander beater. Nothing but trouble. I have a project for tomorrow that involves a good deal of pulp, so I cut up and set a pound of straw to cook. Normally the pot will handle that much plant material and more, only this stuff was puffy. Had to cram and shove till it finally stayed beneath the water. All well and good, until about 3/4 of the way through cooking and the pot boiled over. Instead of doing the intelligent thing and taking part of it out, I thought maybe I could get by with the straw partially cooked. Wrong. Oh, the beater chewed the stuff up, but only lengthwise. Ended up with a mat of fibers that hung together like felt. Not good. Emptied the beater and put the mass back on to cook. ** Cut up some dried broomsedge to process tomorrow, if I have time. 11-6-01 For some time I’ve been playing with an idea of how to pull a 3’x12’ sheet of paper without help. (Why? Why do people climb mountains?) The mental step-by-step said that the idea should work...in theory. Theories are wonderful things till put in practice; then they become learning experiences. In order to keep this learning experience within bounds, I scaled it down to a 3’x7’ sheet. It would be impossible for one person, without block and tackle, to “pull” a sheet that size out of a vat, but it’s the skin a cat thing. The idea was not to pull the sheet up, but to drain the water down, leaving the pulp on the screen. And for a change, it was a wild haired idea that actually worked. I placed a sheet of plastic on a level area, built a 3’x7’ frame from 2x4 studs on it, pulled the plastic up around the stud frame and tacked it to the top, making a very shallow “vat” to contain the pulp. Laid the nylon screen in the bottom and proceeded to fill the vat with water. The screen floated. Duh. It turned out that the air bubbles from filling were trapped under the screen, and I was able to push them out and the screen to the bottom where it stayed. Dispersed yesterday’s pulp in the water, waited for it to settle on the screen, then cut small slits in the plastic on the outside of the vat to drain it. The key here was “small.” I didn’t want any flow in the water that would move pulp off the screen, just a slow, steady lowering of the water level. Took about 2 hours. Cut the plastic all way round on the outside and removed the 2x4’s, which left the pulp covered screen draining on the plastic sheet...only it wasn’t draining. The plastic was holding the water in the pulp. H’okay (said to myself), just pull the screen off the plastic onto an adjacent level area. Strangely enough, that worked without disturbing the pulp, but at that point I put a part of the idea to work that almost demolished the paper. When we remodeled the bathroom, the vinyl flooring came wrapped around a hollow cardboard tube. The day the vinyl arrived I happened to be playing with the idea of the large paper sheet and thought, gee, wouldn’t that tube make a great roller to use on the paper to force the water out. If I hadn’t been so enamored with the idea and had given it an objective overview, I would have realized what was going to happen, but no...I was in love with the plan. As I rolled the tube down the sheet, yes, the water was forced from the paper, but that water had no place to go but forward. It liquidized the pulp and created a floating mass that moved in front of the tube. Erk! Scratch that idea. Went inside and found some netting and felts, place the netting on the sheet of pulp and blotted it with the felts. Worked beautifully. It’s dark now, and the sheet is still lying in the driveway to be dealt with tomorrow. Now, if my husband just doesn’t leave tire tracks across it when he comes home tonight…and if the ’coons leave it alone... ** Took time this evening to blend and pull small test sheets from the dried broomsedge I cooked yesterday. Makes good, solid paper, though unlike the lovely paper from green broomsedge, it’s rather unremarkable. 11-7-01 No tire tracks or ‘coon tracks on the paper this morning, though the ring tail cats had tracked across the pool cover. Moved the sheet and screen over onto dry pavement and left for the sun to evaporate the water. By mid afternoon it was dry. Now I have one large sheet of paper and I haven’t the foggiest idea what to do with it. 11-8-01 The large paper sheet has a home now. It’s hanging in Belle’s office window at Berea Tourism, conveniently blocking the sun so she can actually use her computer in the mornings. The Japanese maple leaf and pine needle inclusions stand out well with the sun behind the paper. ** Want to try another sheet to work through the glitches I had with the first one. Harvested the last of the frost bitten hostas and set them on to cook. I’ll mix a little abaca with this when I beat it. I had no way of knowing with the last sheet how much pulp to use, so it turned out thicker than I intended. I’ll cut that amount in half or maybe less for this next one. Won’t pull it till tomorrow, but set the frame up this afternoon. 11-9-01 Too cold to play in the water very early this morning, so it was 9 AM before I could fill the Hollander with the hosta and about 3 oz dry weight of abaca. Had to clean leaves out of the form I’d assembled yesterday. Filled it with water and added the pulp about noon, distributed it and let it settle. Discovered after I’d added the pulp that the screen had a raised ridge running diagonally at one end. This wasn’t the screen I’d used previously, but a new one. I knew this would cause a thin streak in the paper, but nothing I could do would flatten it. I wasn’t too concerned about the quality of this sheet, since this pulling was, yet again, supposed to be a learning experience to work through glitches I’d experienced in the previous one. (Why did I not think there would be new glitches this time?) Just let it go, and cut slits to drain the water. Took a little less time since I’d used less water. This time after I’d removed the side rails and slid the screen off the plastic, I used netting over the pulp and blotted it with a towel. Worked well. Moved the screen to a dry area and left it to sun dry some. Came back later and placed the 2x4’s on the ends to hold down curling. Had yet another problem I’d not had before. The wind started blowing, and since this sheet was considerably lighter than the one before, and even though it was still damp, it was flapping and threatening to blow away (shades of Mark Lander’s tales). Took it inside and laid it on the living room floor. Pinned the edges of the screen to the carpet to stop some of the curling. ** Earlier while the pulp was draining, I did a clean up of odds and ends pulp I had stached in the refrigerator from previous pullings. I looked at the compost heap, but I can’t throw away stuff I’ve worked too hard to make. A dab of this and a dab of that and two handfuls of whatever — foxtail, purple foxtail, witchgrass, straw, Japanese knotweed, broomsedge. Individually, each was a lovely pulp...but mixed together? It had possibilities, but not just as it was. Before I mixed them, I set aside the dark and light fibers, then bleached the midrange, the fibers that would give the paper a dull look. Set the Hollander running with some white cotton rag, then when it was almost done, I added the mixed fibers and let it run long enough to finish the cotton. Pulled one test sheet to see what this ragtag mixture would look like, and it’s nice. The light fibers form a soft background for the darker, unbleached ones. The paper quality of each individual pulp had been good, though each was slightly different. Mixing them seemed to improve the quality of all. It will make a nice paper for almost anything, even for writing. I had a gallon or so of useless odds and ends. Now I have 2.5 gallons of good pulp. Along the way, I’ve defeated my original idea of getting rid of pulp. 11-10-01 Lovely day! Took a walk up through campus to see if the gingko had dropped its leaves, but it hadn’t, at least not many. Gathered a few, but not enough for a real cooking, just enough to see if there is any difference between paper from green leaves and yellow. Walking back through the center of town, I noticed the gingko across from the Boone Tavern had carpeted the ground yellow. This is the center of town… I wasn’t brave enough. 11-11-01 The paper dried nicely, no curling. This sheet is considerably thinner, but the fibers are distributed evenly. The first large sheet was made from two large coffee cans of well drained pulp. I only used about 2/3 of a can for this one. The thought crossed my mind to make a fold-out fan with it using wood for the handles and arm sides, but the paper probably isn’t crisp enough for the folds. I may pull another for a fan, still using the hosta/abaca mix, but add another fiber that will give the paper a little more body so it can be folded. 11-13-01 I’m not a speaker and don’t feel I know enough about paper to talk about it, but I did go up to Berea College and shared the plant fiber papers with the fiber arts students. Great bunch of kids! A lot of good questions, a few laughs about the Thoroughbredus poopus paper and, for me, a whole bunch of fun being with young people who are full of enthusiasm about art. 11-14-01 Had a “foolproof” theory about how to save the plastic each time I pull a large sheet. Yeah… If you create a double-wall plastic sheet tank with a 3’x5’ hole in the bottom of the inside sheet, place the screen in the bottom of the vat over this hole, doesn’t it make sense when you lower the outside plastic sheet that the water will flow down through the screen, down through the hole and out the sides? Makes perfect sense...but it doesn’t work that way. The vat won’t drain at all! Apparently, the two sheets of wet plastic bond together so closely, that they actually seal the water in. Amazing. I tried it on a sheet of hosta,abaca and pampas grass. Scratch that idea. I did salvage the sheet by draining as I had before. On this sheet I used a full coffee can of pulp and randomly embedded threads of handspun, naturally dyed cotton that Claudia Lee had given me last year. This sheet will be thick enough to fold as a fan...if I can find a place big enough to work with it while I’m folding. 11-15-01 Back before I began keeping this journal, I made some paper from young Johnsongrass. The smooth texture and quality of the paper that was made from the unwashed, unbleached pulp was fascinating, but I didn’t have time follow up to see what else could be done with it. I had dried some of the grass and today I cooked it up, ran it through the blender, washed the pulp and pulled sheets. It creates a very thin, silky off-white paper. Lovely stuff, wonderful feel. The pulp is comprised of very fine fibers and would be an excellent addition to coarse fibers that are difficult to pull by themselves. Next year when the grass is three feet or so high and before the seed heads form, I’ll gather some to have on hand. Johnsongrass has the advantage of being plentiful and free for the asking. Actually, farmers would be more than glad to give this pest away, especially if you will take roots and all. (For those not familiar with the grass, it is an invasive plant that spreads by roots and costs farmers many dollars in lost crops each year.) 11-16-01 Took the big sheet with embedded threads down to Tourism and used a table there to score and fold the sheet for a fan. Before I left Old Town, I stopped to visit a minute with Bobby Craig, a local jeweler. Bobby took a look at the folded paper and asked if I wanted bamboo for the handles and arms. “You have bamboo???” said I. “Of course.” said he, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to have bamboo stacked in the back room. So, now I have a fan with bamboo handles. It’s three feet tall and a little more than four feet wide. The same handspun cotton yarn that is embedded in the fan is used to wrap and secure the handle. 11-20-01 This morning I got up still playing with the idea of Johnsongrass. The frost has totally killed it, but I was wondering what effect that would have on the fibers. Walked down by Silver Creek and gathered 10 oz of just the leaves. I figured the stalks would be too tough to process unless they were cooked separately. I was a little concerned about the leaves because they were so fragile. Some even broke in my hands as I was putting them in the sack. As it turned out, I should have broken all of them. Instead of breaking or cutting them into shorter lengths, I just crammed them all in a pot and cooked them for 2.5 hours. They were far from fragile when I took them out. Oh, they were well cooked, but scissor cutting or pulling apart clumps of the long strands was impossible. Took a butcher knife and a cutting board to slice them to size for the blender. (With carpenters working here today, it was impossible to use the Hollander.) When the dry Johnsongrass was run through the blender, it made pulp that looked forevermore like cowpie soup. Ugh! Couldn’t imagine anything decent coming out of that, but it did. The pulp made a nice, tough brown paper. Even better, though, was the creamy white paper it made when bleached! It is tough, smooth, fine and difficult to tear. A delightful paper. The pulp has many fine fibers and will be excellent for using with other fibers that are difficult to pull. Because of the pale color, it should be non intrusive. ** I’ve never done Siberian iris before, so I harvested the dying leaves and they’re on cooking for tomorrow. 11-21-01 The Siberian iris made nice, smooth pulp and decent, though unremarkable paper, both straight and bleached. It does have to remain in the press until absolutely dry, though, or it will pucker. **Had some of the Johnsongrass pulp left in the refrigerator and a few dried Japanese maple leafs. Pulled a couple of very thin sheets of Johnsongrass with embedded leaves, and I’ll send them to Silas House via Jim on Tuesday. Silas’ next book, Parchment of Leaves, is due to come out next September. 11-25-01 It’s strange how changing craft fields forces you, as a matter of course, to view the world around you differently. For most of my life as a woodcarver, I saw everything from that perspective. In the woods, trees and downed timber always held my eye. But when I began making baskets in the early 80’s, my perspective changed. Suddenly things I’d not paid attention to before came to the front. Vines, which in the past I had either ignored or pulled out as nuisances, suddenly took on such wonderfully twisted shapes. Were they handles or rims or wonderfully flexible weavers? With papermaking, much the same thing has happened. Old things become new, but now I view everything with a different question — will it make paper? At first the questions revolved around recycling paper and the matter was relatively simple. Will newspapers make good paper? No. Will egg cartons make good paper? Well, sort of… Even within the papermaking field I find my view of things changing. When I began looking toward plants as sources for fiber, suddenly those same vines became sources for paper fibers. Even the vines that were hanging in my garage and were intended for baskets became sources for paper fibers. After I bought the Hollander, not even the clothes in my closet were safe. My husband began buttoning the top button of his shirts and hiding his “almost worn out” jeans on the closet’s top shelf, well out of my reach. This fall when the frost had destroyed all the plants outside, my eye was caught by the overgrown mother-in-law tongue plant in the hallway. Could I? Would it? Why not? And FWIW, the plant does make nice paper, but…. Never in my life have I ever cooked anything with an odor as strong and obnoxious as that plant! My cookpot is on a screened in back porch, but that made little if any difference. Even with the doors closed, the stench invaded the house. And the cooked fibers retained that odor. Most unpleasant to work with. However, I will say it does make lovely paper. This sheet was pulled from a mixture of both well processed and partially processed fibers. |
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