Monday, September 11, 2017

september is always so busy!

the second day of peace paper at zone 4
drew and jana set students up to prep cloth
here a multitude of retired t shirts
color batched into the hollander and ready for papermaking.
z4's little valley beater
(drew says it's the best one in the country)
makes short work of a pound of t-shirt
actually about 20 minutes or less per load. 
 below, combining peace paper blurb, military uniforms from drew's work with veterans
and our sophomore seminar (melissa and me doing book arts)
 intergenerational chopping
in the print shop at slu.
 and then sheet forming.
our class really became quite skilled.
in the background is tom lascall 
who lives here and always lends a hand when peace paper is in town.
 the paper production line
 sara lynch and her friend viola came by
and made a couple of sheets
sara is an artist/potter from potsdam, 
she taught me a bit about clay last summer
 we dried paper in the dry box and by hanging the pressed papers on their felts 
 a full mill
 on the home front
we had the sawyer in to make boards from the trees
m. felled last winter
practicing forest health
and making lumber.
 the piles of drying lumber 
are behind the extra firewood (look between the two front stacks).
 saturday afternoon/evening and sunday morning we unloaded 
two wagons of lumber
mostly white pine, but also
oak, ash, black cherry, and poplar.
 pallets sourced from local businesses
are the bases for our drying stacks
 and where, oh where, are the final stacks?
if your body was as weary as mine was
after 6 hours of helping (and i was only the helper)
you'd have forgotten that photo, too!
back home i made some kami-ito
steamed it
and wove a small long cloth
for a tsunobukuro
 grapes for size comparison.
 and then i made a second one
with only one strand of linen sewing the seams.
 if you have Hirokos' book you will have seen her set up for cutting kozo
and Susan's shows it as well.
my set up included shanna leino's leather weights
which serve to hold the sheet while cutting
and serve and a hand rest for my left hand
which gets mighty tired holding down that straightedge.



 i kept a candle lit to keep me focused and happy
i love the smell of beeswax.
 and am almost ready to use these covers i made
years ago with local jeweler and bead maker 
mary harding.
and today i get to teach again with melissa
book arts
and we get to see and touch all our beautiful new paper.

10 comments:

  1. Oh Velma, so much to see in your posts , and so much to comment about.
    I feel tired with the wood piling etc...don't envy you the labour that involves. We heat with wood.
    I feel inspired seeing all that paper from t-shirts getting made by young people.
    And I appreciate the beauty of those leather weights!

    Rest a bit my friend.
    xo

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  2. judy, the new place is heated with wood as well. this lumber is for home projects. it felt great to get it ready to season. and the young papermakers were terrific!

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  3. milling after only a year? when I lived in the bush we let the logs season for 7 years before milling
    love seeing all the processes and the ceramic book covers are beautiful!

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  4. mo, some of these logs already had insect damage after just 6 months! the north east is a harsh, wet climate. if we let them season (logs on the ground with bark on) they would be well on their way to compost in that time!

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  5. & your wood is much softer of course! The farm was in the hot wet subtropics near Nimbin in Northern NSW we slung the rough cut Rosewood aka Dysoxylum frseiana an a fragrant Australian rainforest hardwood timber under the house to keep the white ants out I still have a few pieces left, they are treasures and a weathered 100 year old red cedar fence post

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  6. oops typo that's Dysoxylum fraserianum

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  7. mo, i don't know the difference between our hardwoods and yours, but if you have rosewood, well, that's dense and hard. the wood m. harvested was mostly white pine, soft, and not the healthiest. the woods at our place weren't managed, this is hardscrabble land, much abused and ignored. we hope to leave it a little bit healthier.

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  8. oops sorry i sent the comment as a message :(

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  9. neki, thanks for the reminder--i trashed it but so weird! all good, i love how we look out for each other here in the ethers!

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  10. it felt great to get it ready to season. and the young papermakers were terrific!



    แตกใน xxx

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