Gin's Place

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8-5-06  Someone has asked me why I don't start a blog instead of journaling.  The main reason is that Gin's Place started as a simple website.  It wasn't until later, in 2001, that I added a journal, and this was before blogs were popular.  The thought didn't even occur to do it that way.  There would be several advantages to blogging instead of journaling now, primarily the RSS feeds, but there would be no way to convert past entries into that format.  I would have to start fresh  I'm not going to give up journaling here, but at some point I may hedge my bets and start a blog that ties back to this site.  If I do, you can be sure you'll know about it. 

8-8-06  In August of 2001, on a lark, I made paper from horse dung. While the quality of pure dung paper isn’t the best (horses aren’t especially picky about what they eat), it is interesting both in appearance and as a curiosity for the weird source of papermaking fiber. Back then I took quite a bit of ribbing for doing it, and it still comes back to haunt me occasionally. Not long ago I received an email from Lauren, one of my journal readers. She was doing horse dung paper as an art camp project, and the process resulted in a rather unique discovery. I asked if I could share her experience here and she agreed. Below is her email:

dear gin, hello! i am getting prepared to teach a papermaking class next week. this will be the largest class that i have ever taught, at thirty students, and they will all be rather high income kids from a town about half an hour from me.

its an art camp, for teenagers, that focuses on nature and when they said that i couldnt help but remember a journaling of yours that i had read two years ago on horse dung paper. Really, it stuck with me.

as i was harvesting and rinsing it i wanted ten times to e-mail you with questions and concerns; this was totally different that any other plant fiber and i guess i was feeling a little insecure about doing it wrong. anyway!

it was a wonderful process, from taking my kids to see the horses and collect manure to watching it rinse clean and become a sweet smelling grass. well, sweet if you like earth. i tried your pillowcase technique (except i stitched a rather large pillowcase from white muslin) and found that it retained too much water. after finding a tightly woven metal basket i absent mindedly discarded the muslin in a twisted pile and continued rinsing the dung and cooking some other fibers for several hours. when i was done and began cleaning up i realized that the white muslin had taken in the dark olive color and because of the neglectful way it was laying for so long it took on a tiedyed effect also, in different hues of green. i sew for income and cant help but be pleased with unusual fabrics. does this sound appalling? it is washed and laying out to dry, still strongly tinted and awaiting its future life as a handsewn something.

i cant even tell you how pleased i am with this and all because of some teenagers that i thought might enjoy some paper that's as natural as it comes. handdyed fabric from horse dung, can i even tell people about this? i'm not sure yet. thank you for the inspiration!

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8-9-06  If you're interested in papermaking, I suggested that you check out the Yahoo papermaking list.  It's a wonderful resource full of helpful, friendly people who can answer just about any question related to papermaking.  (An added plus is no flame wars...period.)  Great group.  To sign up, you can visit the homepage at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papermaking or you can send an email addressed to papermaking-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.   **Someone on that group asked about making paper from corn husks, whether the fiber would make paper on its own or whether it needed another, supporting fiber.  While corn husks will make paper on their own, it's a quirky fiber.  Because of that, I'm not sure I would recommend it for beginning papermakers.  There definitely is enough fiber in the husks, but there is also a great deal of non-fibrous mush (which I call gunk, because that's the way of think of it).  This fiberless material is the reason corn shuck paper cockles so much.  Rinsing out as much of the gunk as possible will improve the quality of the paper and reduce the tendency toward cockling.  It's possible to remove almost all of it by cooking the husks, just partially beating them (either by hand or running briefly through a blender), then rinsing and straining the pulp through a wire strainer.  The open weave of the strainer allows the gunk to escape, yet retains the fibers.  Paint strainer bags are useless for this purpose because the fine mesh prevents the gunk from escaping.  Once you have eliminated as much of the gunk as possible, you can continue to beat or blend the fibers to the consistency you want for your paper.  If you want highly fibrous paper such as this, only beat or blend briefly.  If you want a smoother, less textural paper such as this, you would probably need to use a Hollander beater.  It might be possible to do this with a blender, but it probably wouldn't be time/labor effective.  Another interesting thing you can do is to dye the corn husk fibers.  Cook, partially beat and rinse the husks well, then use dye according to directions.  After dyeing, these fibers can then be added, without additional beating, to other pulps to create highly colorful and figured papers.

8-10-06  Got a call from the Artisan Center.  Seems a signature in one of the Traveler's Journals that I sell to them was bound in upside down and they wondered if I could pick it up and fix it.  No big problem, it's easily done, but I'm surprised it was only one signature of the three.  A couple of years ago, I bound a whole Papermaker's Season upside down, and that was a casebound book with six signatures and 96 pages.  No fixing that one.  I discovered it when I opened the book to put the swatches in.  I must have been in a perverse mood that day because I went right ahead and pasted in the swatches.  The book sits on my shelf as a reminder to to keep my mind on my business.  Not working very well, is it? 

8-11-06  I'll say it again...I have never tried anything as challenging or as frustrating as watercolor.  (We'll not count playing the banjo or shooting pool, neither of which I mastered, and both of which I had the good sense to put behind me.)  I am beginning to grasp the meaning behind some of the things I've read and been told about watercolor, but grasping and executing are two different matters.  Still, with every picture I paint, I'm feeling a little more confident, a little more in control.  Of course, with every picture I paint, I find more places to make errors, perhaps because I'm pushing, trying to do more than I'm able.  Right now, I'm not trying to create lovely pictures.  Instead, I'm painting things I know, things from nature, such as this picture of false turkeytail.  I'm satisfied with some aspects, and terribly dissatisfied with others, primarily the background and perspective.  Still, this was an exercise.  In this case, it was "what if" I use this to create the bark on a tree...and I found out what if.  Won't try that again, at least not on such a large scale.  (As an aside, you don't know how difficult it is for me to share this learning experience.  I'm a solid, professional level artisan in four fields.  My feet are firmly underneath me with those.  With watercolor, I'm a dead flat novice, and I'm on shaky ground.  It's hard not being proficient at what I'm doing, and it's even harder sharing it.)

8-23-06  I've been busy.  Unfortunately, most of the things that have kept me busy weren't things you'd want to read about, so no journaling.  I do have a project coming up that I think is going to be interesting.  I'll be working with a couple who are photographers.  They want to take their business in a different direction by using handmade paper for printing their digital photographs.  They know photography.  I know paper.  We're going to try to merge what we know into a viable product.  I will be teaching them how to make a quality paper, and in the process, I may learn something about photography, at least the printing end of it.  It should be fun. 

8-24-06  I didn't get back into watercolor until yesterday.  In searching around for something to paint, I thought about Sherry Chandler, one of my favorite Kentucky poets.  She has a profile picture on her blog that would allow me to try a portrait, yet avoid having to do eyes.  (Hey, I'm a coward.  Even though I've never done a portrait before, I know eyes are difficult, particularly in a small painting, and I'm not ready to tackle them yet.)  The painting isn't perfect, but I think I managed Sherry's likeness well enough that someone who knew her might recognize her from the painting.  (BTW, I hope you'll take a minute to browse through Sherry's blog.  She runs the gamut...from poetry to politics to pets to fun things in everyday life.  I've known her more years than I care to admit.  She's one very special person, one I didn't mind picking to be the first subject.)  I am having a great deal of trouble forcing myself to put enough paint on the paper and as a result, the paintings are washed out...way too light.  Nearly everything I've done is that way unless I make a concerted effort.  I know part of it is fear that I'll get too much on the paper.  This is evident even in the painting I did a while back of the false turkeytail mushrooms.  It's dark enough, but I became afraid to put shading and shadows in.  So, while I had the paints out today, I took that picture, killed some of the background clutter, darken the background and reworked the shadows, hoping to give it some of the depth that was missing. It does look better.

8-25-06  Honest, I am a good-hearted person with the best of intentions, but sometimes things just don't work out the way I envisioned.  Not long ago, I found a sphinx moth in the enclosed back porch, a victim of Caesar's late night hunting, I'm certain.  He was fluttering around, basically unharmed.  Okay, I caught him and released him out the backdoor.  Fine, except he didn't even make it to my neighbor's yard before a cardinal caught him mid-air.  So much for that good deed, at least as far as the moth was concerned.  Now, this morning I happened to be outside when I heard a plop in the pool.  It was a mile jumper.  He was thoroughly enjoying the water, frogging around, bobbing up and down, as frogs are wont to do, but since there's no way out, he would drown if left there.  Being the kind, good-hearted person that I am (have I mentioned that before?), I got the strainer and pole and fished him out...twice.  First time he leaped from the net, hit me in the chest, pushed off and landed back in the pool.  Well, duh.  Second time, I was a bit faster and quickly flipped the net so he landed well away from the pool...right in front of Caesar, who had come out to see what I was up to.  Now, they've gone off together to play somewhere.  I'm not sure whether this qualifies as a frying pan/fire thing or not.  Maybe not.  Caesar tends to tire of his playmates before they expire, so there is hope.

8-26-06  I had planned on going to Zoe Speak's Clear Creek Festival this evening, but got up with a sore throat, stuffy nose and running a low grade fever.  Didn't feel all that bad, but didn't figure the night air would do me any good.

8-27-06  A few years ago, my husband and I did a cross Canyon hike from the north rim to the south.  To say it was an experience would be an understatement.  Between the heat and the incline, those thirty some-odd miles were the most grueling I've ever walked.  The last few steps coming out of the Canyon and looking back where we'd come from, I realized we had done something that few other people have, relatively speaking.  And if pride is a sin, I was a true sinner.  I didn't retire my boots, but they've had little use since.  Most walking I do doesn't require extreme ankle support, so I hike in softer, lighter weight, suede boots.  The heavier Canyon boots sit on the top shelf of the closet, I suppose as a reminder of our past travels.  This morning I got them down and, ahem, immortalized them in watercolor.  (I know...trite subject matter, but hey, I'm still caught up in the sinful pride of hiking accomplishment.)  As usual, I blew the picture.  (Pray tell, when comes the point when I can be sinfully proud of a watercolor?)  I'm reasonably satisfied with the boots, but I blew it with the background.  I forgot the shadow.  Did the 'cart before the horse' thing.  It would have been so easy to wash it in before I ever started on the boots, but no...I was too intent on getting to the meat of the picture.  I think it would be possible to put the shadow in now if I'm careful, but I'm scared of leaving drying lines..