Pollinators on strike series: How is it made?
There’s still time to visit Lake Country Art Gallery for the exhibition “moral panic, whisper campaigns, wicked problems” on until May 11th, 2024
Pollinators on strike: Attempt for Mars, made at Penland School of Craft in the papermaking studio. On display until May 11th at Lake Country Art Gallery.
My papermaking journey began with hand beating fibers with a stick, standing outside in the snow while I poured pulp onto sheets of plywood and drying paper in front of the fire.
Imagine my excitement to learn the proper techniques at Penland School of Craft. I was so fortunate to spend 6 weeks there learning from a master papermaker from New York. Amy was such a kind and patient teacher!
Papermaking starts with a plant. Cotton, Hemp, Iris, Corn, Kozo and many others. In this picture we are diligently adding flax fibre to the beater. This can take up to an hour or more depending on how well we cooked the fibre ahead of time and many other factors. Beaters are loud yet the time can be meditative and also social.
You really get to know your materials this way
after many hours in the beater (cotton is about 1-2 hours while flax can be up to 8) we add the pulp to a vat and pull paper sheets with a mold and deckle. This is just one way, there’s many other ways…
Hand mixing pigments and creating various coloured pulp
This sheet was formed with a deckle box mixing abaca and flax. Then hand pigmented and washed and embossed with objects for texture.
More random objects to add texture
I’m creating a blowout here with a fogget and stencil (after hand pigmenting the fibres black) This will be “couched” on top of an existing sheet to create the wings.
This has a base layer of abaca and flax, then a blowout stencil of a wing over that with objects for texture. The objects are removed after pressing.
The electric press was so great. I’m used to standing on plywood at home…
close up of “Pollinators on strike: escape from duty” on display at Lake Country Art Gallery until May 11th.