getting at it

the yukon is a land of tall, skinny spruce trees

blackened trunks, short gnarly branches of dark green 

the trees often grow quite cramped together, perhaps gathering warmth from their close quarters

leaning this way and that

and invariably festooned with a hairy black lichen of the bryoria genus

we called it "witch's hair", others referred to it as "old man's beard"

I've always loved it though I can't tell you why, perhaps it's simply that my first memory of it is at our family cabin at  marsh lake and everything I noticed and remember from that time in my life matters to me...

so many happy memories

fast forward then to sometime in the winter of 1986/87 when I first learned to make paper

though the paper we made in the class was from recycled papers, the instructor spoke of making paper with plant material and I immediately thought of the lichen 

(yes, I know it's not a plant but it came to mind anyway, I suppose because it hangs out on one)

this week I finally gave it a try

I had picked some last summer but couldn't find it so when a friend came to visit me in November I asked her if she could bring me some

she brought me a small bag of it, gathered from a couple of trees in her yard

the paper-making learning I've been doing for the last few months has involved using linters (cotton and abaca)  and/or plant material (reed canary grass and corn husks) and neither the course I took nor my paper-making book cover lichen so I was on my own

I weighed the lichen and into the pot it went with tap water to cover and then some

it sat for a few minutes and then was brought to just before boiling on medium heat...  a bit of soda ash stirred in and finally the heat was turned down a bit and I let it simmer some more

two hours later I turned it off and let it be overnight

the next morning I gave it a stir and found the lichen had lost it's "hairiness" and become a lump of black goop

I didn't know if I should be delighted or mortified and though I had no idea if it would work I gave it a go

so, so glad I did

the first sheet was bolstered with a small amount of cotton linters, you can see it on the left below

(the darks are darker than they show here - I've taken photos of it for two days and no matter what I try I can't make them look as dark as they are)

after that initial sheet was pulled, I added abaca linters instead - abaca is a stronger plant fibre than cotton and I wasn't sure how strong the lichen would be

when I blended the lichen pulp I did it in two batches -  the first batch literally disintegrated in a heartbeat so the I didn't blend the smaller, second batch, just dropped it in the pulp/water vat and stirred it in

that's what made the larger dark spots

so glad I did it that way, they look beautiful, and in some cases have a navy cast to them

yesterday and today I spent some time laying other papers and things alongside the paper, thinking about whet I'd like to do with it

with some work done in one of Karen Ruane's classes a few year's back  

also, I had two sheets that were almost identical in weight and value so I took one, coated it with konnyaku and crumpled it 

"momigami", the Japanese call it

those two sheets are laid side-by-side below

although these papers are incredibly special to me I'm itching to use them and have almost completely upended the studio looking for any and everything that might look good with them but after several hours of trying things and thinking I got nowhere

I simply couldn't decide what to do, where to start

frustration started to build... I know how this story goes... I can't make up my mind so I pack it all away and move on to the next thing I've always wanted to experiment with

this time I had a back-up plan though, a way to push myself forward

two actually... one is a 12' x 12"  floating canvas in a black frame

the other is the same only 6" x 12"

two collages then

no excuses

next week I will have at least one to show you

(that's back-up plan #2... make a commitment!) 

take care,

jillayne