First Paper

From GPL Book Arts Project:

Had my first papermaking outreach session yesterday at Gaston High School. The school media specialist, Heather Mashburn, allowed me to essentially take over her library and turn it into a papermaking factory! Throughout the day, I worked with over sixty teens, aging from 8th grade up to 11th (and possibly 12th) grade, and even did a quick impromptu demo for a group of elementary kids who had a counciling class in the library during my visit (the fact that the paper pulp looked like snot, that I pretended to sneeze the pulp out of my nose, AND that I allowed them to dip their hands in the pulp to touch it made the moment all the more magical...yes, I did actually do a demo of papermaking during all the playing).

The response was better than I dreamed it would be!  The students were interested and very engaged, as was evidenced by the five or so young ladies who cleared the rest of their school schedules for the day so that they could be my helpers.  And helpers they were…making paper until there was nothing left to make paper with.  I’ve never seen a pulp bucket so clean in my life…

Some folks have expressed interest in my method of papermaking.  Well, to be quite honest, after researching and considering a number of different papermaking techniques (paying special attention to things such as time consumption, availability of materials and equipment, cost of materials and equipment, etc.), I opted for a technique that combines two online tutorials that stood out to me for their use of recycled material (we are a library, after all, and have lots of used copy paper, discarded magazines and catalogues, old newspapers, and plenty of junk mail…all the things that regular folks would have lying about their own homes).  The two processes that I most closely followed are those by Christina Fajardo and Kim Logue.  Both artists offer similar techniques that I could replicate easily with a crowd.  I highly recommend you check out their websites.

To view photos of Gaston High School's Papermaking on The Gadsden Times website, click here.