Papermaking & Dyeing Processes for 'Hemlock'

Beating hemlock bark in Tuscaloosa, 2022

For my newest book Hemlock, I was mostly making paper from home.

This started in 2021 when COVID was still a big factor. I had also graduated and lost studio access at The University of Alabama and was working full time. Later, with the book still not finished, I moved across the country to start a new job in Colorado.

This whole project was a study in how to make paper + a book with two smallish moulds, a home setup, and many different life distractions.

I began my papermaking process by setting up a useable mobile paper studio in my backyards in Tuscaloosa then Birmingham, Alabama.

I knew wanted to start by making small paper samples using a mixture of hemlock bark, kozo, and abaca. Abaca can be ordered in sheets from Carriage House. The kozo was easy enough— it grows wild in Alabama and I had already scouted out multiple spots to harvest from. It just takes some labor to process. But where would I get the hemlock?

I didn’t feel it was ethical to harvest hemlock bark from wild places in Alabama (the hemlock woolly adelgid hasn’t hit there yet so there are tons of healthy trees). I found some from a fallen tree and used it for sample sheets; but then luckily, when I moved to Birmingham, I discovered hemlock trees everywhere!

In fact, my back neighbor had many large hemlock trees in his yard:

No cats were harmed in the making of the video below. (I don’t normally put them on leashes connected to propane tanks, this was an experiment that mostly failed.)

Sidenote: I’ve tended to get lucky with papermaking in the places I’ve lived. My yard in Tuscaloosa was full of kozo (paper mulberry) trees and there was a huge plot of them just steps from my house in an abandoned lot. During a tornado warning storm on Easter 2020, a big kozo tree in my yard fell on power lines, knocking out power to the entire neighborhood.

I knocked on my neighbor’s door in Birmingham and asked if his hemlock trees needed a pruning. He said, yes, in fact they keep hitting his head when he’s mowing, and do you need a ladder? I happily pruned the trees without falling off the ladder. I also got some branches from a fellow artist in Birmingham.

Cooked hemlock inner bark. Yum!

Bark material needs to be processed while it is still alive, so I didn’t have much time. I sawed and cut the branches down, steamed them, stripped the inner bark, then scraped the outer bark. The process is identical to kozo and any other bark.

I kept the outer bark and some larger pieces for making dye (more on that later). Then I cooked the inner bark pieces in a solution with 20% soda ash, similar to kozo. I cooked for about 2 hours and the hemlock was absolutely PERFECT. See this video where I am pulling it apart against the grain?

Hand-beaten hemlock

I tried a mixture of sample sheets:

• hand beaten hemlock

• Reina-beaten hemlock

• hemlock + kozo in several percentages

• kozo dyed with hemlock (cute pink but I didn’t use it, except in some of the Companion books);

• abaca + hemlock-dyed kozo

• abaca + undyed kozo

• abaca + hemlock (I didn’t like this).

I ended up with a very cool gradient that inspired Study for a Decomposing Hemlock and part of “What to Remember” in Hemlock.

Small book from Hemlock with hemlock paper cover. Click here if you want one!

I ended up going with:

• 100% hemlock

• Hemlock with just a little bit of kozo, 10-15%, to make it go farther and strengthen it

• 70% Abaca + 30% kozo

I made the hemlock sheets using Western sheet-pulling methods. I didn’t have enough hemlock to make large sheets, so I ended up only using it for the covers of the small books in Hemlock, as pictured. The 100% hemlock is almost indistinguishable from the hemlock with a little bit of hemlock-dyed kozo added.

I also made abaca/flax sheets for dyeing, which ended up in “What to Remember” (keep reading) and bleached flax for the white sheets in “Ghosts.” For these, I used pulp in sheets from Carriage house.

Next, I wanted to make a very thin abaca/kozo sheet that had a crackly sound, like walking on leaves in the forest. I had a sample sheet I had made in Kyle Holland’s class at UA, but regardless of Kyle’s prodding, I hadn’t written down a single thing about it. So I had to experiment.

I had a winter residency at Penland for letterpress printing, but I managed to convince the paper studio folks to let me make paper for a few days. They were very nice! I also got to use a bigger mould and pulled sheets Western-style. The abaca was beaten for 4 hours and was moderately slow-draining.

The abaca-kozo paper ended up very thin and crackly, as I had hoped, but the hand-beaten kozo somehow didn’t mix perfectly with the abaca and it ended up with visible white strands throughout. I am guessing this came from when I mixed the two fibers briefly in the beater at Penland. (I have found that kozo can sometimes get knotted up in a beater even if you keep it high, though other papermakers seem to have had better luck with it. Please tell me your secrets!)

Hemlock woolly adelgid

At first, I disliked the paper. But then someone pointed out that it looked like it had bits of the hemlock woolly adelgid in it, which is fuzzy and white.

And when, later in the residency, I went nuts and started inkjet printing on it, I was surprised by and obsessed with the result. I also ended up doing cyanotype on this paper and loved it. It turns out that sometimes a weird, accidental, or “ugly” paper can be just the right thing.

Inkjet-printed “ugly” paper, abaca + kozo

So I had my paper. Time for dye!

I made hemlock dye by soaking and simmering hemlock branches and bark in water for several hours. I did this twice. I also added a little bit of soda ash, which intensified the color.

When I moved to Colorado for my new job at The Press at Colorado College, I lugged two full buckets of hemlock dye across the country. Luckily, hemlock bark contains tannins, which is a natural preservative. Thank goodness the hemlock was able to comply with my years-long process for this book.

I did the hemlock dyeing at The Press at Colorado College, on my 2nd floor porch, inside my 1br apartment during the winter, and at a mini residency in the San Luis valley of Colorado. I was starting a new job and was knocked out from the altitude and life changes, so I did everything in bits and pieces.

Dyeing with hemlock dye in the San Luis valley

The hemlock-dyed paper hung out in sunlit spaces for many hours, sometimes, and it did not fade. I did between 2 and 8 dips, depending on how dark of a brown I wanted. (I did mordant the paper with alum before dyeing; I did not size any of my papers.) The abaca-kozo paper held up extremely well with this many dips, cyanotype processes, inkjet printing, etc.

Air-dryed abaca/kozo paper dyed with hemlock

One of the most fun parts of this project was trying to make my abaca-flax paper look like stone. In Bankhead National Forest in Alabama there are tons of rock bluffs and canyons with beautiful multicolored stone walls, often with iron, ochre, and other pigments dripping down them and lots of shadow play. I had taken photos and decided to try to replicate this with a mixture of rust, walnut, and indigo dyes.

Rock wall in the Sipsey Wilderness, Alabama

First layer - rust

I started off with rust dyeing. I found a flat metal surface that was beginning to rust and added vinegar to it to bring out the rust a little more. I then dampened my handmade abaca-flax paper and laid it on the surface with weights on it. It took anywhere from 1-5 hours for the rust to take in a way that I liked. This accounts for some of the variation in the book — I didn’t figure out how to replicate the process exactly each time, even if I did the exact same thing.

After the rust, I made a batch of indigo and dripped and brushed and dipped to get unpredictable, stone-like results. I then dripped some walnut dye to darken or sadden the color. When indigo interacts with the iron/rust, this also saddens the color a little.

Rust + first layer of indigo

For the lighter sheets, I used spent indigo to create gray. These sheets may change and lighten over time, since spent indigo is not really a dye and will not last if it is exposed to light for long periods of time. Since I am going for a washed-out gray, I was not too worried about this. (Conservators, let me know later.)

"what to remember” from Hemlock

This was really a process of experimentation, constraints, and patience, mostly with myself. I always have things I would do differently for every book project, but I find myself overall happy with the results.

You can pre-order Hemlock and its companion books by contacting me. Sales will go live in a month or two.

A note of thanks: While I was in Alabama, the University of Alabama MFA Book Arts program was kind enough to let me use their Reina beater from time to time. Thank you! I also got to beat fiber at Penland School of Craft during a winter residency. It would have been a different book without the use of a beater, so I am very grateful. An online class with Amy Richard also helped immensely with the processing and hand-beating of kozo.

Adventures in Fungal Papermaking, 2020-21

Over the past few years, I’ve found myself obsessed with the idea of making paper out of fungi. Luckily, Tim Pfitzer at @herbincalabama and @magiccitymushrooms was kind enough to donate spores and mycelium for me to experiment with.

Fungi does not contain cellulose; its cell walls contain chitin, which also makes up exoskeletons of some arthropods (insects, crustaceans, etc). “Paper” that is made from 100% mushrooms has less integrity than cellulose-based paper but it has a felt-like, slightly spongy, and very interesting texture.

A polypore or conk mushroom

I first experimented with making mushroom paper from polypore mushrooms in January 2020 while I was working on my book Mycorrhizae. I had already made recycled paper that I “innoculated” with chanterelle mushroom spores, but I wanted to try making 100% mushroom “paper.” I soaked the polypores for 3 weeks, cooked briefly to kill critters, then cut them up and blended. I then pulled sheets with friends Josh & Nicole. The dry paper has such a cool, fabric-like feel to it!

Mushroom bags from Magic City Mushrooms. Score!

This summer, the mushroom + paper saga continues…. I picked up some already-fruited bags of blue oyster and reishi mycelium from Magic City Mushrooms in Birmingham. I picked off the white mycelium and composted the remaining sawdust substrate, trying to remove as much sawdust as possible (I will try to do better with this in the next batch, though). Then, I beat a pulp of 75% recycled paper and 25% mycelium and pulled sheets with poet/geographer Josh Dugat. Many thanks to the MFA Book Arts program at The University of Alabama for use of their Reina beater!

The final paper is very speckled/textured and a little spongy! Josh and I will be using this for the cover of a new collaborative book called Hy-phae/phen.

I am planning to try different mixtures and proportions to get the right texture and consistency for printmaking and writing, and I’ll try my hand at making polypore paper again if we get some good rain.

Dauphin Island ArtSeaLab Festival, October 25-27, 2018

Last fall, I had the honor of being asked to teach a community papermaking workshop at the ArtSeaLab Festival in Dauphin Island, Alabama! This was the first year of ArtSeaLab, a collaboration between the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Art Does It!, a local arts non-profit.

I collaborated with Joshua Dugat and Nicole Gelb-Dugat on a community Ecolit workshop series, with the goal of creating an edition of 20 community-generated chapbooks over the course of two days.

We started with recycled papermaking on a rainy, blustery Thursday in late October. Before class, Josh, Nicole, and I ran out to the beach in the driving rain to collect seaweed, grasses, and other artifacts. We did our best to dry off before the participants — who came from as near as Dauphin Island and as far as Birmingham — arrived.

We started by blending up pre-soaked cotton paper to make a white pulp. I also taught them how to make a simple mould-and-deckle using a picture frame and screening material. Students took turns pulling and couching sheets, adding our beach-combed inclusions to form a beautiful, textured paper with delicate plant matter scattered throughout, to be used for the chapbook covers.

On the second day, the sun finally came out. Hundreds of monarch butterflies fluttered around in the bushes outside our classroom — a much-needed resting spot on their long migration south. And we needed the sun, too, because this was the day Nicole was teaching cyanotype printmaking! We started class by going outside and collecting materials, including butterfly wings, shells, plants, trash, etc. Nicole then taught us how to lay out our items on a sheet of paper painted with a light-sensitive chemical, then bring them outside to expose. This was my first time making cyanotype prints and I’m excited to try working this process into a future artist book!

Photo by Chengru He

Later that Friday, Josh led a generative poetry workshop. We brainstormed words, phrases, and ideas related to the Dauphin Island landscape, beginning with the prompt “What should be blue, but isn’t”? We were all truly amazed by how Josh’s expert guidance led us to write poems we were proud of in less than two hours.

We spent the night ironing still-wet paper, digitally printing the poems from 10 participants on the cyanotype sheets (we had laid them out so there was room for printing), then cutting the sheets down and collating them.

Photo by Chengru He

The next morning, everyone gathered to sew the books together. MFA students from The University of Alabama’s English department and friends from Tuscaloosa also joined us.

We presented our books and poetry at an evening event, with dozens of beautiful cyanotype prints floating above us. Afterwards, students from the English departments at UA and the University of South Alabama read their prose and poetry, followed by a reading by Alabama poet Kwoya Fagin Maples.

The extremes of rain and sun, fluttering monarch butterflies, lines of hanging cyanotypes covering the classroom, and wonderful company made for a truly enchanting weekend. For some pics of the final chapbook, click here!

Photo by Chengru He

Paper and Book Arts in Mexico

A version of this article first appeared on the University of Alabama's Capstone International Center and Graduate School websites.

As an artist, anthropologist, and book lover, I have long been fascinated by Mexico’s paper and bookmaking traditions. So when I began the University of Alabama’s Book Arts MFA program last year, I jumped at the opportunity to learn more through a summer research trip to Mexico.

From as early as 800 AD, the Maya, Mexica, and Mixtec peoples had created beautiful screenfold books containing hand-painted text and images. Almost all of these books were destroyed by the Spanish. But today, some artists in Mexico are working to revitalize and modernize their country’s paper and book traditions. Among them are the workshops Taller Leñateros in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, Taller Santos Rojas in the town of San Pablito, and Taller Papel Oaxaca in San Agustin Etla.

Taller Leñateros papermaking studio

I visited Taller Leñateros in the state of Chiapas in late May 2018. The taller was started in 1975 by the poet Ambar Past with the goal of reviving the Maya art of bookmaking. Today, it employs local artists to make eco-friendly recycled paper and print and bind original artists’ books containing Maya songs, poetry, and stories in multiple languages. I did an intercambio, or knowledge exchange, with the four artists at Taller Leñateros. After I gave them bookbinding lessons, they taught me how to make paper from maguey fiber — the same plant used to produce tequila and mezcal. Before I left, I filled my suitcase with many beautiful (and heavy!) books, paper, and prints.

In early June 2018, I embarked on the second leg of my trip to learn about amate, a prehispanic type of bark paper. Families of papermakers in San Pablito, Puebla have been continuously making amate since before the arrival of Cortes in 1519, first for books commissioned by the Aztecs and later for religious rituals. Contemporary amate makers are experimenting with different types of bark and are creating modern designs for everything from wall hangings to lampshades.

I took a workshop with Juan and Jorge of the Santos Rojas family, who taught me the entire process of making amate. First, we tromped in the woods to harvest mulberry and jonote bark, then headed back to the taller to cook the fibers over a small fire. The next day, I learned how to use a volcanic rock to pound the delicate fibers into thin sheets. The pounding process resulted in a lovely marble-textured paper that I incorporated into my most recent artist book, Tribute.

Sheets of amate drying on the roof of Taller Santos Rojas

My last stop was Oaxaca. Oaxaca has a rich tradition of printmaking, along with a lesser-known papermaking tradition that has sprung up around it. In the city, I briefly stopped by the Instituto de Artes Graficas Oaxaca, which houses an art library and a small press that produces risograph and digitally printed artist books (they are also beginning to experiment with letterpress). I then went to San Agustin Etla, a small town north of the city, home to the beautiful Centro de las Artes and several small papermaking studios originally sponsored by local artist-legend Francisco Toledo.

Valenzuela sorting through maguey fiber

While in San Agustin Etla, I took a papermaking course with Alberto Valenzuela of Taller Papel Oaxaca. Although he began his career making cotton paper for printmakers, his own studio is dedicated to paper that connects more deeply to the land he loves. Valenzuela is a true maestro of Oaxacan papermaking, having experimented with over 30 different native plants, including the native Oaxacan brown cotton, coyuchi. We picked through a large bin of partially-fermented maguey, the by-product of a nearby mezcaleria, or mezcal distillery. After cooking the maguey over an outdoor clay oven, we put it in a hollander beater with pre-beaten cotton and pulled sheets western-style. The result was a lovely text-weight sheet with visible maguey fibers.

When I came back to Alabama in late June, I was struck by how we lead our lives almost entirely indoors — from house, to car, to work, to studio, and back again. In Mexico, I spent almost all of my days outdoors. People were always walking and working outside, exposed to the elements; and despite having limited resources and studio space, the artists I met were able to create high-quality, interesting books and paper. I was sad to leave, but I am also energized to spend more time outdoors here in Alabama, especially experimenting with making paper from local plants!